My Birth Story: A Black Woman Hypnobirthing At Home

My precious Imani Ife made her fashionable debut on Friday, May 6, 2022 just in time for Mother’s Day. But, her birth story does not start the night before or even the day she was born. It starts the weeks and days before that. We had had several false alarms: once at 37 weeks when she’d dropped so low in my pelvis I became concerned she’d come before the 37/38 week mark, and then the second time, the week before her birth, when we’d tried several natural induction methods, but to no avail. I’d became frustrated and physically and mentally exhausted as week 40 turned into week 41. I played the Fear Release MPS and the Powerball MP3 several times in those weeks, and the Calm Birth breathing technique became my bridge to calm in the midst of the ups and downs of those last days and weeks. The midwives had spent all Sunday before her birth giving me herbal remedies, and monitoring baby and I closely, but by day’s end it was clear that I was not going into labor and that she was not ready. I cried that night from exhaustion and the next morning from the sheer feeling of being overwhelmed as well. Even though I’d appreciated the care of my midwives that weekend, I began to realize that this was not quite how I wanted to bring my precious joy into the world. I knew I wanted a home birth but not at the expense of having the intimate experience with just my husband and I in early labor…