PEA IN THE POD HYPNOBIRTHING

About

Hi, I’m Ruth,

I’m the founder of Pea in the Pod Hypnobirthing. I’m a mum of two, a business woman, a volunteer, a traveller (well, I was…enter kids!) and a big Lidl bakery fan. Most importantly, I’m passionate about helping people have the positive birth experience that they deserve. I had my eldest daughter, Penelope, or ‘P’ for short (my first ‘Pea in the Pod’!) in 2019 and to be honest, I wasn’t particularly traumatised by the birth, even though it was long, painful and in parts, fairly dramatic. I had my baby in my arms and I was just so glad it was over. It wasn’t a great experience, but who enjoys birth? Right?

Fast forward a couple of years and I was pregnant again, and so no longer able to ignore that day I gave birth. Yes, I had my healthy baby, for which I was truly grateful, but I was filled with questions: why did that happen? Why did they do this to me? I looked back and wasn’t even sure of what had happened for lots of it. I felt a bit weird about it – like I’d given birth, but also, like I’d not had that much to do with it! My initial feelings of relief had passed and now I was curious, and starting to think that maybe getting a healthy baby shouldn’t be all we hope for; maybe that should be the bare minimum? Maybe birth could be, if not lovely, then at least ok?

I felt determined to have a better experience with my second baby. I read, and I read, and I read… I definitely developed a bit of an obsession with the topic of birth! I attended a hypnobirthing course and it changed my whole outlook on birth. Rather than being scared of what might go wrong, I felt amazed and in awe of the female body, and how most of the time, it works incredibly well. I found myself looking forward to the day my labour started, feeling excited about this awesome thing I was going to do! And knowing that even if things didn’t go the way I wanted, I was ready to deal with it and stay in control of what happened to me.

Hypnobirthing radically changed my outlook on birth and, I believe, gave me the amazing, positive birth experience that I deserved when I had my second baby, Daphne. Shortly after her birth, I decided that I couldn’t keep this information to myself! I wanted to tell everyone about it, and help others to achieve what shouldn’t be as rare as it is: a positive birth experience!