Hi lovely, my name is Abby Watson and I am the founder of Love Your Birth. I am a mum of four small people and self proclaimed birth addict! I am passionate about supporting women like you to have positive births and help expectant parents become confident and happy mothers and fathers.
I love all things birth and early parenting and I strongly believe women should be given informed choice when it comes to their care, their births and beyond. I support women in whatever choices they make and believe women are the experts in their bodies.
I am a former Secondary School teacher and I live in Mirfield with my husband Adam, our four young children and our King Charles spaniel.
In August 2012 I was halfway through my first pregnancy, I was excited to become a mum for the first time, however I was petrified of labour and birth. I associated birth with extreme pain and lack of control. These thoughts made me feel very anxious. Whilst out shopping for baby I bumped into an old friend who’d just birthed a beautiful baby boy. She looked fantastic and spoke really positively about her birth. She told me that she had studied Hypnobirthing and how brilliant it had been. Little did I know that this conversation would change my life.
When I returned home I quickly researched Hypnobirthing and the more I read about it the more I realised that it would make a massive difference to my attitude to birth. I then booked a one to one course for my husband and I.
I loved the course and I suddenly became excited about the birth rather than anxious about it. I developed full trust in my body and realised that birth was not something to fear and that it needn’t be an excruciatingly painful, traumatic experience. I saw that actually birth could be pretty magical!
Adam, my husband also really enjoyed it (despite his initial skepticism!) he felt that he would have a part to play in the birth and felt confident that he wouldn’t be the spare part that his friends told him he’d be!
In January 2013 I gave birth to our gorgeous son Harris at Calderdale Birth Centre with no pain relief (not something I set out to do- but hand on heart I didn’t need it). It was such an amazing and empowering experience, I couldn’t wait to do it again. Then in June 2014 I gave birth to our beautiful daughter Imogen at home. I know that Hypnobirthing enabled us to have such wonderful experiences, therefore I want to inspire and support other women to love their births as much as I loved mine. How could I not share this with the world?
You can read more about my births here.
I decided to give up my job as a Secondary School Teacher and train as Hypnobirthing instructor. I choose to train with Katherine Graves in January 2015.
Love Your Birth was born!
So for five years I’ve worked with more than 300 wonderful couples to have positive birth experiences. I’ve since had two more babies and began mentoring and training other Hypnobirthing teachers.
Love Your Birth Hypnobirthing has evolved to be the very best Hypnobirthing has to offer. I’ve added lots to the course so my clients feel confident that they can have a positive birth whatever happens on the day.
It’s a true pleasure to be doing something that I absolutely love and totally know always makes a difference. I am blessed to have found my passion in life so I’m so grateful that couples allow me to be a small part of this incredible time in their lives.
Through my work supporting couples and having my own children I’ve realised that whilst women use Love Your Birth Hypnobirthing to have the best birth for them- feeling confident and strong, Hypnobirthing goes way beyond this and supports couples to become empowered parents. Therefore I’m passionate about extending my support beyond birth!
I’m delighted to say that in 2018 my lovely ex client Hannah Brown has joined me as a Love Your Birth Hypnobirthing instructor, this way we can reach more parents-to-be, covering a wider area. When Hannah applied I couldn’t think of anyone more perfect for this role. She encompasses everything that’s been so key to my values as a Hypnobirthing teacher; positive, supportive, warm, knowledgeable and so passionate about birth preparation. It has been a privilege to train and mentor her.
Meet Hannah…
Hello! My name is Hannah Brown I live in Castleford with my husband Chris and little girl, Lucy.
I started my Hypnobirthing journey when I was pregnant with Lucy, I was excited to be having a little girl, but I was terrified of giving birth. The only births that I had ever seen had been on the soaps and they all looked horrendous. I genuinely felt scared, everyone that I knew was telling me how terrible it was, so I prepared myself for the worst, after all if you expect the worst it will never be that bad…right? It was at that point of feeling so negative and sick with fear that I knew that I had to do something to take control of my pregnancy and birthing experience. I refused to let the fear consume me and ruin my pregnancy, I wanted to enjoy it and be excited when the time came to meet my baby.
I studied Psychology at University so deep down I knew that the power of the mind was something that was very strong, so why not use it to prepare myself for birth? I started to do some research and my Husband and I attended a group sessions with Abby and we never looked back, my mindset completely changed even after attending 1 session. Hypnobirthing allowed us to feel in control as we had the confidence and positivity to approach birth in an excited manner rather than feeling scared and nervous. I knew that hypnobirthing was right up my street, but I never expected it to benefit Chris as much as what it did, he was so pleased that I had ‘dragged’ him along.
Low and behold, I had an amazing birth. I started with my surges at 7am, I went back to bed to sleep and conserve my energy. Come 3pm after having a nice, relaxing bath and practising my affirmations / visualisations we decided to go to the birthing unit, I was shocked to find out that I was 9cm dilated. I immediately got into the birthing pool and I later gave birth to Lucy at 6:44pm after only having 1 paracetamol (I knew that working with my body rather than against it would help with the surges, but I never expected to be able to give birth without pain relief). My birthing experience had been amazing, I was so proud of what me and Chris had achieved.
I could never have imagined giving birth in such a positive way, I genuinely felt like superwoman and immediately felt like every woman and their partner should have the opportunity to feel this way during their pregnancy and their birth. I felt like I needed to shout out from the rooftops everything that Abby had taught us. You can read my full birth story here.
So here I am today, I have completed my Hypnobirthing training and having now taught lots of parent to be these amazing tools. It’s such a privilledge to share all of my knowledge with parents to be to help empower them throughout their journey. I genuinely feel passionate about helping women and their birthing partners to have the best possible birthing experience.
