Why do I teach HypnoBirthing?

I’m Yvette, the founder of (and what I refer to as my 4th baby) Birthing With Love.  Primarily, Birthing With Love is aimed at bringing HypnoBirthing to new parents and those who are looking for a new way to prepare for the birth of their next child.  I also offer classes around baby care, postnatal planning and pregnancy relaxation.  Here is a little insight into why I do what I do.

Why I became a HypnoBirthing teacher? 

My children think that I have the strangest job in the world and I’m not entirely sure my husband fully understands why I am so obsessed with all things birth-related, especially as we have 3 little ones (surely that’s enough to satisfy anyone’s broodiness?!).

I haven’t always been a HypnoBirthing teacher, in fact, I graduated with a B.A.(Hons) in Marketing and Advertising and spent my previous career working in various marketing departments, mainly working in Marketing Communications - brochures, creative writing, product launches, branding, that kind of thing.  
I came across HypnoBirthing when I was pregnant with my first baby boy in 2009.  My husband introduced the idea, which I love!  He heard about it from a work colleague who had sold the course to us.  We looked forward to our weekly sessions in our HypnoBirthing Teachers lounge.  Doing the classes brought us closer together as a couple, it changed our perception of birth and made us start to connect with our baby in a way that we hadn’t done before.  We were going through a tough time, due to illness in the family and the course gave us the focus and distraction that we needed.

The birth itself wasn’t easy (I feel another blog coming on to tackle this one), but I found an inner strength and confidence in my own body that I never realised I even had.  My birth was not ideal, it strayed away from what I had planned, yet I felt calm throughout.  I was disappointed, I won’t lie, however, the techniques that we had learned kept it all together for me and with the support of my husband, I did it all without even touching the gas and air!! Believe me, this was never the intention and by no means is this the measure of a successful birth, but I genuinely felt that the breathing, relaxation and visualisation techniques were enough for me.  Knowing what I know now, I can categorically say that without HypnoBirthing, my birth would have been a whole lot worse!

Back then HypnoBirthing wasn’t really talked about… the midwives at the hospital were intrigued about this way of birthing… we even had a change of midwife, as a less experienced midwife clearly felt out of her depth!  Then in came midwife Tina (you remember the names of the people who treat you kindly and ‘get you’).  She was so excited and in her words ‘had always wanted to see a hypnobirthing!  Sadly, the birth was too long for her to see it through to the end but she made such a positive impact on my birth experience due to her enthusiasm and encouragement, for which I will be eternally grateful.

The next day, I had several Midwives wanting to meet me, telling me that what I had done was amazing, they even wanted to use my birth as a case study!  I, on the other hand, didn’t quite have the same take on the whole thing!  I did, however, feel empowered and proud of myself and completely in awe of the inner strength that seemed to appear from nowhere…I knew it was all thanks to HypnoBirthing.  Why didn’t all women prepare for birth with HypnoBirthing…clearly this was something quite special!

Over the next few years, my husband and I would talk about HypnoBirthing and how incredible it was at every given opportunity. I became obsessed with sharing this amazing way to prepare for birth and this sparked my own desire to delve deeper into the birthing world.  

I went on to have a home birth 3 years later, my experience was amazing!!  Still not quite what I had planned but I built on my previous experiences and had a wonderful, birth.  I revisited my HypnoBirthing tools, I prepared using the audios and it worked for me, yet again!  This was enough for me to take the plunge and change careers…I was going to help other women learn the techniques to birth in this way.

I decided to take a longer route and train with the NCT and the University of Worcester.  I wanted to have an accredited qualification and to gain all the knowledge surrounding preparing parents for birth as well as life with a baby.

I still teach NCT Antenatal courses and it is a big part of what I do, I love it…it’s very different to HypnoBirthing but the two courses complement each other perfectly.  I honestly do an internal dance when I find out a couple are preparing for HypnoBirthing but have also signed up to an NCT course because they both have such an important role to play in birth preparation.

In 2017, I decided to bite the bullet and train to become a certified HypnoBirthing teacher and I have never looked back…it felt as though my personal birth journey had come full circle when I qualified!  I was finally able to bring these amazing techniques to other parents and help them to share what I had experienced.

Throw a relocation into the mix and a third baby and I decided to officially set up Birthing With Love in September 2019.  I now run group courses as well as private one to one courses and recently, I decided to add my knowledge and expertise of looking after babies (through my NCT training and my personal experiences of looking after my three babies) to create Beyond The Bump - a practical baby care class. This is currently free with every HypnoBirthing booking.  I also offer a postnatal planning session which can be a one-off or a bolt on to one of my other courses - lookout for my pregnancy relaxation classes too!

My aim and my passion are to help parents achieve the birth experience that they truly deserve and to be fully prepared for the early days with their babies - this is a course like no other and is certainly not a tick box, quick-fix approach to preparing for this life-changing time in your life.  Get in touch to find out how I can support you on your very special journey.