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Fibroids, Nausea, and Hypnobirthing: Hawa’s Inspiring Birth Journey
This is not intended to provide medical advice. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. Please consult your doctor for any health-related concerns.
Hawa's pregnancy journey was filled with challenges and lessons, including a miscarriage, painful fibroids, and discovering the benefits of hypnobirthing. As a women’s health nurse practitioner student, Hawa brought a unique understanding of reproductive health to her own experience and created a birth plan document that helped the hospital staff respect her autonomy during labor and delivery.
She and her husband began their journey to parenthood with optimism, but it wasn’t without hardship, as they suffered an early loss before their eventual successful pregnancy.
After several months of trying without results, the couple sought help at a fertility clinic. There, Hawa’s fertility and her husband’s sperm were tested, and they were given supplements to boost their reproductive health.
"They tested how many eggs I had on average and tested my husband’s sperm,” Hawa recalls. "Then they gave us a bunch of supplements to help improve those numbers for both of us.”
Eventually, Hawa became pregnant. However, just a few months later on Christmas Day, she suffered a miscarriage. "We were ready to tell our friends and family...and something told me to test again that morning. The line was super faint. Later that day, I had a really rough period."
Despite the devastation, Hawa leaned on her knowledge as a fertility nurse to stay hopeful. “I knew because I worked in fertility at the time that there wasn’t anything wrong with me. It didn’t mean the next pregnancy wouldn’t be successful.”
Her optimism proved true—two months later, Hawa conceived again, and this time, the pregnancy progressed smoothly. However, new challenges arose, particularly the pain caused by fibroids that grew during her pregnancy.
Navigating Pregnancy with Fibroids and Nausea
Hawa’s pregnancy was marked by physical discomfort, most notably from fibroids. Although she was initially told that her fibroids were located on the outside of her uterus and wouldn’t impact her pregnancy, she later learned how debilitating they could become.
"What I wasn’t told was that they could become incredibly, incredibly painful," Hawa shares. The pain from fibroid necrosis—when the fibroids outgrow their blood supply and start to die—first hit during her babymoon in Turks and Caicos. “I had this shooting pain in my abdomen where I couldn’t walk. I was just in the bed.”
Hawa was advised to rest and was prescribed medication to help manage the pain. Despite these difficulties, her pregnancy continued healthily, though it wasn’t without other discomforts, including severe nausea.
"Sour Skittles and anything sour really helped with my nausea.”
"For a while, I was kind of bragging to my mom and my grandma, like, I don’t have any nausea, I feel great. Then, right about 13 weeks is when it really kicked in," Hawa explained. “It’s not morning sickness; it’s all-day sickness.”
To alleviate her nausea, Hawa found relief in an unusual remedy: sour candies. "Sour Skittles and anything sour really helped with my nausea,” she says. She even went to Costco to buy a large bag of Sour Patch Kids to have on hand at all times.
Discovering Hypnobirthing
As Hawa approached her third trimester, she began exploring ways to manage her labor without an epidural. "I thought about an epidural, but I also wanted to kind of see what my other pain control options were like," she explains. “My husband actually found the class. He was Googling, and he found this awesome woman who owns a birthing center, and she suggested we join a hypnobirthing class.”
"A lot of the focus was on breathing and just allowing your body to open up.”
At first, Hawa was unsure what hypnobirthing would entail, but her curiosity was piqued. "It’s just kind of a way to be autonomous and to take control over a process that feels very out of control," she says.
The couple attended hypnobirthing classes every Wednesday for about two months, and it became a transformative experience for Hawa. "It really gave me hope that I could be in control and I could control my physical process. I gained an understanding that my body was made to do what it’s about to do.”
The techniques she learned in class, such as breathing exercises, meditative practices, and physical positions to assist in labor, became essential tools during her labor. “We practiced on the yoga mat, on the ball, opening up the hips on the chair. A lot of the focus was on breathing and just allowing your body to open up.”
One of the critical lessons Hawa took from hypnobirthing was the importance of “breathing through contractions” rather than clenching or tensing. “When we tense up, we’re actually working against the contractions,” she explains. "So the idea is to breathe with the contractions, send as much oxygen to your womb and belly as possible, and let your body do what it was designed to do.”
Crafting a Birth Plan: A Path to Empowerment During Labor
Hawa's birth experience was shaped by careful preparation and a desire to maintain control and autonomy during labor. One of the key ways she ensured this was through a detailed birth plan, which she and her husband created in advance of their hospital visit. This birth plan, a Word document they shared with the medical staff upon arrival, outlined their preferences for the birth environment and the interventions they wished to minimize unless medically necessary.
"Typing up your preferences and giving them to the nurse when you get there can make a huge difference."
"We created a whole Word document,” Hawa explains. "We wanted the lights down, we had candles, LED candles going, and we had a playlist that we made." The couple also brought essential oils and other items to create a calming, peaceful atmosphere in the delivery room. “I knew that when I was pushing, I wanted to set all of that up and have everything going,” she says.
Though Hawa’s labor progressed so quickly that she didn’t end up using everything she had planned, the dimmed lights and LED candles still created the peaceful environment she had envisioned. "Just having the lights dim and the candles was enough of a vibe," she adds.
The birth plan wasn’t just about the environment. Hawa and her husband also included specific instructions regarding medical interventions. “We asked the staff not to pressure me into having an epidural unless I brought it up,” Hawa shares.
The document also requested that cervical checks be limited to only when necessary and that the number of people entering and exiting the room be minimized to maintain a sense of calm and privacy. "We wanted to keep it as minimal as possible," she says. "Only necessary checks, labs, and personnel in the room."
When Hawa and her husband arrived at the hospital, they handed the birth plan to the nursing staff, ensuring that their preferences were clear. "Our nurse, who was probably in her late 60s, understood what we wanted right away,” Hawa recalls.
Click below to download Hawa's Birth Plan Document
"She let everyone know, and it was really calm and quiet in the room. We didn’t have a bunch of people in and out." This respect for their birth plan allowed Hawa to feel supported and in control. "It saved us from potentially awkward conversations, especially in a setting where things can feel sterile and intimidating," she says.
Hawa encourages other expectant mothers to consider making a birth plan, particularly if they want to ensure their wishes are respected during such a personal and vulnerable time. "Typing up your preferences and giving them to the nurse when you get there can make a huge difference," she advises. This preparation helped her feel empowered, allowing her to focus on her labor and birth without unnecessary stress or interventions.
Labor and Birth: 12 Hours of Breathing and Movement
Hawa’s labor began at 11:30 p.m. and continued for many hours. During that time, she relied heavily on the hypnobirthing techniques she had learned. “I labored for 12 hours. It was a lot of breathing, a lot of squat positions, and trying to open my hips,” she says.
At one point, exhausted from not sleeping the night before, Hawa opted for an epidural to rest before pushing. But just as the epidural was administered, her nurse checked and found that she was already nine centimeters dilated. "I was so tired and just needed a break," she says. “I had about six minutes of a nap before it was time to push.”
Despite having an epidural, Hawa continued to rely on the breathing techniques she learned in hypnobirthing, even as the nurses instructed her to hold her breath and push. "I wasn’t holding my breath; I was still doing my hypnobirthing breathing,” she reveals. "It worked for me."
"Hypnobirthing made me feel confident and empowered.”
Hawa pushed for an hour and a half before her daughter was born. “As soon as she came out, they put her on my chest. She was perfect, sweet, and warm.”
Postpartum Recovery and Reflections on Hypnobirthing
Hawa’s postpartum recovery was relatively smooth, though she shared some candid details that often go unspoken. “There’s a smell that happens as you’re bleeding, or, you know, getting rid of all the things that kept your baby alive inside of you. No one talks about it, but it’s normal.”
"I just want women to have more open conversations. The more we talk to each other, the more we’ll learn and the more we can take charge of our health.”
As she bonded with her daughter and adjusted to life as a new mom, Hawa reflected on the transformative power of hypnobirthing. "Hypnobirthing made me feel confident and empowered,” she says. "I felt like I didn’t fight my body the whole time, and I had autonomy.”
For Hawa, hypnobirthing was about more than just managing labor pain. It was about trusting her body and connecting with her baby. "Your body is made to do this,” she emphasizes. "Up until I took that class, I was terrified of labor, but hypnobirthing gave me the tools to feel in control.”
Now, as a new mother, Hawa encourages other women to explore hypnobirthing and to have open conversations about pregnancy, miscarriage, and postpartum health. "I just want women to have more open conversations. The more we talk to each other, the more we’ll learn and the more we can take charge of our health.”
In the end, Hawa’s pregnancy and birthing journey is a powerful testament to resilience, education, and the ability to navigate even the most challenging aspects of motherhood with grace and empowerment.
