Hello. We are Katie & Dan, married for two years and parents to 3 month old Elizabeth. We took the Happy Parents Happy Baby antenatal classes in Gerrards Cross.
We were excited when we found out we were pregnant, however we had no idea what we were doing really. The course gave us all the information we needed for the birth itself and baby care as we were total novices with no other family member experience or friends with babies. Physically I really enjoyed pregnancy and was incredibly lucky to not have a hard time at all and emotionally whilst nervous, the more information we got from the course, the more at ease I became.
Stoke Mandeville Birth Centre, I loved the setting of the birth centre, the calmness of the room and the option to move the furniture around as I wanted so I could stay in better positions than just on my back.
I look back on my birth story as a real positive experience and I do think the hypnobirthing, and labour information I got from the course really helped this happen. I went into labour confident and with my birth plan ready, and fully prepared for what options or situations I may have to face. The most challenging part was the final pushing phase, as my labour was long (14hrs of active labour), by this point I was exhausted and ready to give up, it was only Dan and the great midwife team that got me through to the end!
Breathing techniques 4/5
TENS 5/5
Paracetamol 2/5
Gas and Air 5/5
Music 2/5
Forward and open positions 4/5
If I’m honest I was in shock. I really expected this big emotional crying moment (like my husband had) but I was more just relieved and shocked I had gotten there. It took me a few minutes of Elizabeth on my chest to take it in. We also didn’t know what gender we were having so that was also a surprise to take in!
The course really helped us prepare for general baby care (e.g. what happens with the cord etc.) which helped us be slightly more confident with her. However we had big issues with feeding due to blood loss I had after the birth and so my milk supply took weeks to come in rather than days which caused big difficulties and perseverances with combi feeding as well.
Managing to stick to my ideal birth plan with just gas and air and TENS for pain relief and allowing my body to do what it needed and not panicking at the pain.
Feeding! Breastfeeding is not easy and with supply issues at the start it required a lot of patience and perseverance to keep it going and it took a long time for it to become a positive experience and bonding moment.
I would say managing to keep breastfeeding. Even though we top up with some formula, I have managed to keep my supply so that we breastfeed the majority of the time and I got through the weight concerns, endless appointments and feeding assessments to get to the other side where weight is growing perfectly, latch is great and feeding is positive now!
The mums of the group still meet up regularly for coffee and it’s so nice to catch up and chat about how things are going and share the lessons of being out in public with a young baby.
The peri bottle!
The Dominos pizza we had on our first night home!
Room thermometer.
The swaddle / sleep bag.
Get all the information you can about labour and birth and all the pain relief options etc. so you and your partner can go into it knowing all the possibilities and what you would like to happen / would prefer not to, it really made labour feel less stressful and more “let’s go into this and enjoy this special experience”.
Free downloadable resources and weekly guides for your pregnancy.
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