Photographer Dierdre Ryan was generous enough to share her birth story here with us. You can visit Dierdre’s photography web site here.

i have multiple sclerosis, while i am in pain most of the time all day long and suffer from extreme fatigue, depression, cognitive problems and occasional weakness, my husband and i were determined to have a natural birth and we chose to use Hypnobirthing.

even though my estimated due date was sept. 10th, jayden was ready to come out into the world during deirdre’s 38th week.
i delivered naturally, with no pain medication using my Hypnobirthing breathing and relaxation techniques at Good Samaritan’s in Los Angeles, CA.

i was induced while still 2cm on Aug. 29th, and apparently was walking around all week with surges. dr. dwight was concerned about jayden’s limited movement, as she has been extremely active, and the fact that eating something sweet, and she didn’t move hardly at all was a concern. so he told me to go to maternity, where there was a room waiting and to start on an IV of antibiotics and extremely low dosage of pitocin. not what we wanted, but it was medically necessary. since arriving at the hospital, i was allowed to eat whatever and whenever i wanted. since my pregnancy was picture perfect with no morning sickness, etc. i do not get nauseated, so even on the pitocin, i was fine

i was 4cm dilated the next day and my waters were broken by my doctor. i had no idea that i was that far, there was no pain. around 5cm dilated, that’s when the surges started to come closer and stronger, but i said that the pain was manageable.

i did say “uncle” 30 minutes later, but by that time it was too late. i went from 5cm to fully dilated in about 30 minutes afterwards. jayden came out with only around 6 pushes.

i was walking around and eating a full lunch after everything was done. we went downstairs to post-partum, and enjoyed our daughter. on Aug. 31rst, we were all ready to go home, since i was doing well and jayden had no jaundice, eating fine, sleeping and had her first bowel movement, we got the ok to be discharged.

in the end, the Hypnobirthing was the reason that i did so well, i gave birth with no pain medications, with david, our doula by my side all day and night, and my mother was also there. we believe that for these reasons we were able to go home early.

here is what jayden’s name means: jayden(hebrew for God Has Heard) milagros(spanish for Miracle, also her mom’s middle name) Amalurra(basque for Mother Earth/deirdre has basque in her family).

to find out more about Hypnobirthing go to www.hypnobirthing.com

-deirdre