ABOUT ME

I’m Tessa, and I grew up and live in Yorkshire.

I have a two year old son, who I was pregnant with during the COVID-19 pandemic. This drastically changed how I had previously envisaged my pregnancy and birth. I never sit still, I love being in control and everything in my life has a To Do list attached. (Yes, I’m that person who makes spreadsheets for their holidays.) The pandemic and pregnancy combined threw me into a tailspin - these were two things I could absolutely not control!

Locked down at home with my husband and cat, I dealt with uncertainty the best way I know how - by doing a lot of research - this time, about pregnancy and birth. That’s how I came across hypnobirthing.

I was initially very skeptical (and so was my husband, to say the least!). I have a Masters degrees in Public Health, and the History of Medicine, so I am trained to scrutinise medical and health statistics, and have a critical eye. I was surprised to discover that there is actually lots of evidence on the benefits of hypnobirthing (see ‘Find out more’).

But I still thought I wasn’t the ‘sort of person’ who did hypnobirthing. I was practicing my hairstyles for my labour and trying to decide if I could get away with a gel manicure for the hospital - and I was pretty sure you needed to wear dungarees and drink green tea to do hypnobirthing, when clearly I was a bike shorts and oat latte mama-to-be.

Luckily, I got over myself and jumped fully into the hypnobirthing world - and I am so glad I did. It totally revolutionised how I felt about birth and my body. I felt informed, confident and calm - regardless of how my birth panned out. I learnt so much, and I’m so excited to share it with you.

Similarly, if you had told me four years ago I would be a qualified prenatal yoga instructor, I would have laughed. I had tried to get into yoga and meditation so many times - and I was convinced that I was just too high energy for it to work on my 100mph brain. But like so many others, pregnancy in lockdown meant no swimming or prenatal exercise classes - so I signed up for an online yoga class and I was sold. Before getting pregnant I had no idea about how taking yoga classes during pregnancy may help in labour. I was really active and fit before (and during) my pregnancy and I loved that yoga helped to keep me feeling flexible and strong, even right at the very end of my pregnancy - very overdue, in a July heatwave!