Hi Ann,
I had intended to write this email a lot sooner but I had read Natalie’s email and I thought oh my gosh I haven’t shared my story!!
Okay so here it goes, it’s a long one so bare with me….
I gave birth to my daughter, Olivia back in May, she arrived a day early (just couldn’t wait to meet us) I started pregnancy yoga when I was 15 weeks pregnant and attended right up until I was 38 weeks. During those weeks I met some fabulous mums to be, and a great yoga teacher. The breathing techniques and exercises I learnt were invaluable during my pregnancy and throughout labour.
My waters broke on Wednesday 6th of May, we were so excited, unaware at that point that it would take a whole 61 hours before we got to see Olivia!!
I had irregular contractions from the Wednesday until I was induced on the Saturday morning.
Through these contractions i spent a lot of time on my birthing ball and using the exercises that Ann had shown me. I also found inter nostril breathing, golden thread breath and bramari breathing the most helpful throughout this time.
On the Saturday the induction process began, where the contractions came thick and fast going from 2cms at 10am to fully dilated at 1pm again I could not have got through this without my breathing techniques.
Unfortunately as Olivia was shown to be distressed I had an episiotomy and forceps delivery, she was born at 14:18pm and was not breathing. As you can imagine this was heartbreaking, no cry came, I couldn’t do anything but just lie there and wait. I closed my eyes and tried to think only positive thoughts and concentrated on breathing, after 6 minutes which felt like a lifetime, the cry came and I finally got to see and hold my beautiful daughter.
You may think the story ends there….
2 days later after being discharged I was rushed back into hospital having contracted Sepsis. When I attended the hospital panic set in, with one nurses saying they only had a matter of hours to save my life and start the sepsis pathway.
During this time myself and partner again used these breathing techniques in the hospital to calm ourselves and clear our minds so that we could look after our 4 day old daughter.
Luckily we are both here to tell this tale and tell you what a fantastic place Yoga You Sanctuary is. I truly believe that if it had not been for the techniques Ann had shown me I would have not been able to cope through the whole process. As a result I now attend stress busting yoga when possible and can’t wait to start mum and baby yoga soon.
I also want to say a big thank you to Chris at Kindled Massage Therapy who worked her magical massaging hands on my back throughout pregnancy and still does now!
I can’t wait to come back to pregnancy yoga for the next baby :)) Laura xxx
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