Young Beginnings

Prior to beginning this journey into Childbirth Education,

I worked professionally as a Psychologist. During the course of my education

and training, I discovered my desire for helping others, especially

when it came to helping them find ways to manage stress, anxiety, fear,

and other difficult emotions or situations they may be facing. 

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My passion for HypnoBirthing® began when I was pregnant with my first son.

In my role as a psychologist, I taught my patients to utilize various coping skills and techniques such as deep breathing, visualization, relaxation, mindfulness, meditation, visual imagery, and the use of positive affirmations. Not only did I teach these techniques to others, I used them in my day-to-day life as well. When I began thinking of how I could utilize these same techniques during my pregnancy, labor and delivery, a friend suggested HypnoBirthing.

 

If I’m being totally honest, I was a little skeptical at first,

but after doing some initial research, I realized it did, in fact, encompass

many of the techniques I taught to my patients and was already practicing in my daily life.

I decided that I wanted to be my own experiment to see if I could apply these techniques in what would likely be one of the most challenging situations in my life, but also apply them in a way that would not only allow me to achieve the birth experience that I wanted, but also achieve a birth that was gentle, calm, safe, and more comfortable than those

I’d spent my whole life hearing about.

 

Before I became pregnant myself, all I knew about pregnancy or

childbirth was what I saw on TV, what I read about in books, or what I heard

being talked about by the adults around me.

I suspect this may be true for many people.

 

Everything I ever saw, heard or read painted a painful,

scary, and traumatic picture of birth.

I mean, have you ever seen a labor and delivery scene on TV

that didn’t include the mother screaming and yelling, often at the father/partner,

or something going terribly wrong during the process?

I know I haven’t. It didn’t occur to me until I was pregnant and

began researching HypnoBirthing, that there were other options available

to me and that my birth didn’t have to look like the traumatic scenes in movies. 

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I used HypnoBirthing for both of my labor and deliveries (I will share those stories soon!) and can proudly report that neither of my birth experiences mirrored anything I'd seen on TV. I was calm and relaxed the entire time and in tune with what my body was doing. I was able to let go of any fear I previously held about birth which allowed my body and my baby to work together instinctively. After a successful HypnoBirthing experience with my first son, I knew I'd use it again with my second. When I found out I was pregnant the second time around, I began looking for a local HypnoBirthing educator so I could take a refresher course, but unfortunately the nearest one was over an hour away. It was at that moment that I decided I wanted to become a HypnoBirthing® Childbirth Educator to serve all of the mamas and families in my local area.