Last Minute Arrival

No, it wasn't a baby. It was my arrival at this evening's HypnoBirthing class in Wiltshire. Having worked in London in the afternoon it seemed that a 4pm departure from London would give me plenty of time to reach the Wiltshire class this evening. But an accident on the M4 involved a detour around Wokingham which added an extra hour to the journey and I arrived at the class with timing that would have done justice to Phineas Fogg, at exactly 7pm.

Fosbury Discovery

We had a slight emergency at the Fosbury course last week. No, it wasn't that one of the babies arrived during the course. It was simply that I usually hold the course in my cottage and the sitting room accommodates a maximum of four couples. I live in the depths of the country and, though it's easy to get to from towns like Newbury, Andover, Marlborough, Swindon and Hungerford, there are very few people who live within five miles, so this system usualy works very well. Last week four couples had booked onto the course and then, at the last moment, two more wanted to come.

I wanted to find somewhere which is a pleasant place to be and close to where I live so that the people who had booked already would not be inconvenienced. Church halls came to mind, but they're generally lack atmosphere, but then I had a brainwave. I remembered that there is a lovely converted barn which is available for hire in Shalbourne. It's set back from the road in a delightfully quiet position, with views over open countryside. Perfect!

Fortunately they were free so, after last minute emails and phone calls to make sure that everyone knew about the change and didn't turn up at my cottage wondering where I was, we all met at the barn at Westcourt Farm. It was idyllic; spacious and quiet. Perfect for a HypnoBirthing course and, now that I've found it, somewhere that I shall doubtless use again when numbers are two big for my cottage.

Lunchtime Coincidence

Very often we decide to have lunch together on the second day of a HypnoBirthing course so that everyone can get to know each other better and maybe want to keep in touch and meet up after the babies are born. Yesterday we all went out for a light lunch near the Union Jack Club where we were doing HypnoBirthing. There was a table of 19 of us including 9 very pregnant women. Next to us was a group at another large table, and they all seemed to be couples who had small babies.

So on one side there were the pregnant women and on the other were the mothers with new babies!

It raised as smile.

Riverside Relaxation

Today was the first really sunny day of the year so the riverside venue for the Teddington HypnoBirthing course was absolutely perfect. We sat in the sun by the river for lunch, and watching the boats go by added to the relaxed atmosphere of the course.

How Every Birth Should Be

I had a lovely phone call yesterday. The sort that makes me extremely happy. The call was from a father whose wife had just given birth to a lovely baby girl, their second baby. The first labour had been long and difficult. In fact it was so bad that it was some time before they had a second baby. This time round she did a HypnoBirthing course with me in Teddington. She also decided to have a home birth and hired a birthing pool; both very sensible and practical decisions, and the best possible scenario for a gentle birth. The baby was born in four and a half hours, in water, and the comment from the midwife was: "It was amazing. It's the way every birth should be."

I'm looking forward to her birth report to add to the website http://www.thehypnobirthingcentre.co.uk/.

Our new HypnoBirthing Website is ready

Well its happened at last - my brand new HypnoBirthing web site has gone live! We have switched over to a content managed system so I can actually go in and add course dates myself. We also have an on-line bookings system, which should help make it a little easier for those booking onto our HypnoBirthing Courses.

We've included a pile of new features, but kept the best of the old site including the fantastic natural childbirth testimonials and stories that all you ladies have sent me over the years.

The site has been built by Channel Computing - Web Development, marketing and SEO, and uses an amazing Opensource product called "Joomla!" if you want to get a similar site up and running yourselves.

Please let me know if you like the new site, and keep sending in those wonderful HypnoBirthing stories. Finally I have been warned that there could always be a few teething problems with a new site like this, so please bear with us during the first few days!