[Applause]
when I was five I remember holding my
mum’s hand to cross the road outside my
primary school next to me was my friend
and next to her was her mom who is
pregnant and I remember looking across
at this swollen belly with a mixture of
horror and or thinking that’s got to
come out and I turned to look up at my
mum and I said do you think that by the
time I have a baby
they’ll have made a powder that you can
sprinkle on so it won’t hurt because
even from that early age my expectation
was that Bertha was gonna hurt a lot and
that belief was fueled over the next 25
years with every horror story I heard
and every time I saw a birth on TV it’s
always a medical emergency with a
panicked and gasping woman flat on her
back legs akimbo screaming in someone’s
face
give me Oh the drugs
[Music]
[Laughter]
in 2013 I got pregnant and it turned out
there was still no magic powder but my
inner five-year-old refused to let it go
it just didn’t make any sense to me what
that my body could do everything from
the moment of conception to the moment
just before birth and then suddenly
hadn’t got it covered really my
expectations also weren’t helped by the
swarm of random people who felt
duty-bound to give me their opinion yeah
well my wife wanted a natural birth
until the pain kicked in trust me you
will be screaming for the drugs oh
thanks for that thanks you see the
problem with expectations is that they
shape our reality I knew that if I was
gonna have an empowered birth I needed
to dramatically change my expectation
that led me to discover hypno birthing
oh wow hypno birthing well that sounded
suitably out to there so I signed up for
a course and I found out very quickly
that this was a course rooted in logic
your body can’t be in an emergency
response and a calm confident response
at the same time you have to learn how
to practice an access deep relaxation
before labor trust me when I tell you
that during labor is not the time you
want to be learning how to relax
so through actually learning about birth
because they talk in hypno birthing also
about the power of language the language
that you’re choosing so how the language
you choose actually affects your body
and it affects your experience so in
hypno birthing you don’t have
contractions oh no
you have surges Z is already more
manageable right even for him he’s never
have to do it so through actually
learning about this stuff I started to
create a new set of expectations this
wasn’t just something that was going to
happen to me this was something I could
influence I had to learn how to breathe
trust surrender release a 3:20 a.m. on
Wednesday the 5th of february 2014 i
birthed my son Albert there you can
laugh is pretty funny at home in a
glorified paddling pool I was fully
awesome
and I’m holding this weird waxy alien
type ribcage and I’m thinking just one
more surgeon I’m gonna be a mum and so I
take that breath I breathe down I get
out the way and he swims up in out of
the water and there he is the only
screaming that there was was a tiny
voice inside me prolly did it get in
because you see the beauty of
expectations is that they shape our
reality the first few days and weeks
after you have a newborn are surreal
there is this beautiful stumbling
chaotic freefall that makes no sense and
all the sense like I had no idea what
normal look like I didn’t know if it was
normal to be walking around with
refrigerated cabbage leaves on these
newly acquired Amazonian utters just let
that image sink in shutting myself in a
room with my newborn having a panic
attack because I was not ready to see
the Midwife screaming at my husband in
the early hours of the morning that he
just didn’t smile at me anymore some
people would say that that sounds pretty
normal actually but it didn’t stop there
it grew
and it grew It was as if something had
taken root something had taken hold of
me something powerful and relentless
this overwhelming energy started to move
through me with a superhuman speed I
became obsessed with documenting
everything I felt countless notebooks
and recorded hours of audio because I
became terrified of losing even a single
thought because if I thought if I lost
anything one single thought I would lose
everything I just had hours and hours of
audio on my phone like this mother
whatever had taken hold didn’t want me
to sleep or eat take medication get help
or be loved they only let me sleep for
nine hours in 11 days yeah the thing as
I called it wanted to destroy me and I
believed it could my name is Jessica I
have postpartum psychosis it is not my
fault this is the mantra I created as
soon as I heard the words postpartum
psychosis for the first time and I said
it thousands of times during my illness
and recovery the first time I heard
those words I looked into my husband’s
eyes and I said yes that feels like what
this is and I felt the most fleeting
moment of calm and peace before a wave
of more mania washed over me having a
name for it meant that it was something
separate it wasn’t me
it meant that I was ill and if I was ill
in
that I could get better I knew that if I
was gonna survive I had to say yes to
every contraction of psychosis breathe
trust surrender release because my
psychosis was grueling it was painful it
was terrifying
it was incredible I was the victim but I
was the boss because I forced myself to
remember at every stage that I had
choices in what felt like something
totally out of my control I chose to
have the best psychosis I could oh yeah
this wasn’t how I’d planned the start of
our new lives together obviously but I
have to remember my training this wasn’t
just something that was going to happen
to me this was something I could
influence so I had a bed waiting for me
at a mother and baby psychiatric unit
but I had to get us there it already
taken me 15 hours and countless failed
attempts to try to make the 5 minute
walk from my hospital room to the car
that was waiting to take me there and I
was exhausted and I was on my last
chance because if I couldn’t get us all
to a place of safety the police would
need to be called and I would be
sectioned and Albert would be taken away
from me so I kosis expected me to fail
so I set up a council of war in that
room and I briefed every person in it
with military precision
the crisis team my husband my
mother-in-law and Albert I drilled them
with the plan I had chosen a song that
was three minutes 52 seconds long and we
were going to walk out of there to music
oh yes I would defy the thing that had
taken me hostage by staging the most
epic Hospital cinematic breakout ever so
at 1:00 a.m. on the dot I flung open the
door and with music blaring out of the
phone in my pocket I walked us out of
that Hospital Reservoir Dogs style
in slow motion actually did this all the
way to the car it took a while but I did
it because psychosis picked the wrong
mother to mess with we all have
expectations of course we do but do we
know that we have the power to change
them to influence them can we look at
how we deal with the unexpected and
unforeseen can we find ways to birth our
lives well we’ve all got the chance all
the time in the small things okay you
don’t have to be you know giving birth
or have psychosis to deal with the
unexpected let’s start really small how
do you deal with the weather suitably
British can you start noticing what
happens when you were told sunshine and
you’ve got rain is it horrible weather
or is it simply raining can you start
noticing what happens to your thought
your resistance the tension in your body
the language you are choosing are these
choices little sprinkles of powder that
can help us birth our lives with more
ease a little less pain can we take a
moment to embrace the chaos the
unexpected to shake off judgments about
how I told it’s gonna be or how we think
it should be for a fraction of time and
say yes to what we’re actually
experiencing no matter how difficult it
is
can we stop practicing relaxation in
those tiny seemingly inconsequential
little moments before something big
happens to us because let’s face it
trying to learn surrender when it’s all
kicking off the birth the psychosis the
death the cancer the depression and
that’s not the easiest time if the
problem with expectations is that they
shape our reality and the beauty of
expectations is that they shape our
reality then the wonderful powerful and
incredible truth about our expectation
is that we can practice change
if we have the courage to practice the
courage to be present you know the
courage to surrender the courage to
change
hypno birthing didn’t just teach me how
to birth my children oh yes I had
another one it taught me how to birth my
psychosis and how to birth my life
[Applause]
when I was five I remember holding my
mum’s hand to cross the road outside my
primary school next to me was my friend
and next to her was her mom who is
pregnant and I remember looking across
at this swollen belly with a mixture of
horror and or thinking that’s got to
come out and I turned to look up at my
mum and I said do you think that by the
time I have a baby
they’ll have made a powder that you can
sprinkle on so it won’t hurt because
even from that early age my expectation
was that Bertha was gonna hurt a lot and
that belief was fueled over the next 25
years with every horror story I heard
and every time I saw a birth on TV it’s
always a medical emergency with a
panicked and gasping woman flat on her
back legs akimbo screaming in someone’s
face
give me Oh the drugs
[Music]
[Laughter]
in 2013 I got pregnant and it turned out
there was still no magic powder but my
inner five-year-old refused to let it go
it just didn’t make any sense to me what
that my body could do everything from
the moment of conception to the moment
just before birth and then suddenly
hadn’t got it covered really my
expectations also weren’t helped by the
swarm of random people who felt
duty-bound to give me their opinion yeah
well my wife wanted a natural birth
until the pain kicked in trust me you
will be screaming for the drugs oh
thanks for that thanks you see the
problem with expectations is that they
shape our reality I knew that if I was
gonna have an empowered birth I needed
to dramatically change my expectation
that led me to discover hypno birthing
oh wow hypno birthing well that sounded
suitably out to there so I signed up for
a course and I found out very quickly
that this was a course rooted in logic
your body can’t be in an emergency
response and a calm confident response
at the same time you have to learn how
to practice an access deep relaxation
before labor trust me when I tell you
that during labor is not the time you
want to be learning how to relax
so through actually learning about birth
because they talk in hypno birthing also
about the power of language the language
that you’re choosing so how the language
you choose actually affects your body
and it affects your experience so in
hypno birthing you don’t have
contractions oh no
you have surges Z is already more
manageable right even for him he’s never
have to do it so through actually
learning about this stuff I started to
create a new set of expectations this
wasn’t just something that was going to
happen to me this was something I could
influence I had to learn how to breathe
trust surrender release a 3:20 a.m. on
Wednesday the 5th of february 2014 i
birthed my son Albert there you can
laugh is pretty funny at home in a
glorified paddling pool I was fully
awesome
and I’m holding this weird waxy alien
type ribcage and I’m thinking just one
more surgeon I’m gonna be a mum and so I
take that breath I breathe down I get
out the way and he swims up in out of
the water and there he is the only
screaming that there was was a tiny
voice inside me prolly did it get in
because you see the beauty of
expectations is that they shape our
reality the first few days and weeks
after you have a newborn are surreal
there is this beautiful stumbling
chaotic freefall that makes no sense and
all the sense like I had no idea what
normal look like I didn’t know if it was
normal to be walking around with
refrigerated cabbage leaves on these
newly acquired Amazonian utters just let
that image sink in shutting myself in a
room with my newborn having a panic
attack because I was not ready to see
the Midwife screaming at my husband in
the early hours of the morning that he
just didn’t smile at me anymore some
people would say that that sounds pretty
normal actually but it didn’t stop there
it grew
and it grew It was as if something had
taken root something had taken hold of
me something powerful and relentless
this overwhelming energy started to move
through me with a superhuman speed I
became obsessed with documenting
everything I felt countless notebooks
and recorded hours of audio because I
became terrified of losing even a single
thought because if I thought if I lost
anything one single thought I would lose
everything I just had hours and hours of
audio on my phone like this mother
whatever had taken hold didn’t want me
to sleep or eat take medication get help
or be loved they only let me sleep for
nine hours in 11 days yeah the thing as
I called it wanted to destroy me and I
believed it could my name is Jessica I
have postpartum psychosis it is not my
fault this is the mantra I created as
soon as I heard the words postpartum
psychosis for the first time and I said
it thousands of times during my illness
and recovery the first time I heard
those words I looked into my husband’s
eyes and I said yes that feels like what
this is and I felt the most fleeting
moment of calm and peace before a wave
of more mania washed over me having a
name for it meant that it was something
separate it wasn’t me
it meant that I was ill and if I was ill
in
that I could get better I knew that if I
was gonna survive I had to say yes to
every contraction of psychosis breathe
trust surrender release because my
psychosis was grueling it was painful it
was terrifying
it was incredible I was the victim but I
was the boss because I forced myself to
remember at every stage that I had
choices in what felt like something
totally out of my control I chose to
have the best psychosis I could oh yeah
this wasn’t how I’d planned the start of
our new lives together obviously but I
have to remember my training this wasn’t
just something that was going to happen
to me this was something I could
influence so I had a bed waiting for me
at a mother and baby psychiatric unit
but I had to get us there it already
taken me 15 hours and countless failed
attempts to try to make the 5 minute
walk from my hospital room to the car
that was waiting to take me there and I
was exhausted and I was on my last
chance because if I couldn’t get us all
to a place of safety the police would
need to be called and I would be
sectioned and Albert would be taken away
from me so I kosis expected me to fail
so I set up a council of war in that
room and I briefed every person in it
with military precision
the crisis team my husband my
mother-in-law and Albert I drilled them
with the plan I had chosen a song that
was three minutes 52 seconds long and we
were going to walk out of there to music
oh yes I would defy the thing that had
taken me hostage by staging the most
epic Hospital cinematic breakout ever so
at 1:00 a.m. on the dot I flung open the
door and with music blaring out of the
phone in my pocket I walked us out of
that Hospital Reservoir Dogs style
in slow motion actually did this all the
way to the car it took a while but I did
it because psychosis picked the wrong
mother to mess with we all have
expectations of course we do but do we
know that we have the power to change
them to influence them can we look at
how we deal with the unexpected and
unforeseen can we find ways to birth our
lives well we’ve all got the chance all
the time in the small things okay you
don’t have to be you know giving birth
or have psychosis to deal with the
unexpected let’s start really small how
do you deal with the weather suitably
British can you start noticing what
happens when you were told sunshine and
you’ve got rain is it horrible weather
or is it simply raining can you start
noticing what happens to your thought
your resistance the tension in your body
the language you are choosing are these
choices little sprinkles of powder that
can help us birth our lives with more
ease a little less pain can we take a
moment to embrace the chaos the
unexpected to shake off judgments about
how I told it’s gonna be or how we think
it should be for a fraction of time and
say yes to what we’re actually
experiencing no matter how difficult it
is
can we stop practicing relaxation in
those tiny seemingly inconsequential
little moments before something big
happens to us because let’s face it
trying to learn surrender when it’s all
kicking off the birth the psychosis the
death the cancer the depression and
that’s not the easiest time if the
problem with expectations is that they
shape our reality and the beauty of
expectations is that they shape our
reality then the wonderful powerful and
incredible truth about our expectation
is that we can practice change
if we have the courage to practice the
courage to be present you know the
courage to surrender the courage to
change
hypno birthing didn’t just teach me how
to birth my children oh yes I had
another one it taught me how to birth my
psychosis and how to birth my life
[Applause]
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