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Carol is a wife & a mother of 2 HypnoBirthed children. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, a Certified HypnoBirthing Childbirth Educator, a Certified HypnoFertility practitioner, & a Certified Hyp-Yoga instructor. She has a Master’s Degree in Clinical Social Work & has training in Thought Field Therapy (TFT), Quantum Energetics Structural Therapy (QEST), Reiki & Bach Flower Essences. She teaches HypnoBirthing classes & sees HypnoFertility clients in North County Coastal San Diego, CA. She has been on the Board of Directors of San Diego Birth Network, a non-profit organization focused on supporting the normalcy of birth, for over 2 years & is passionate about helping women & their partners find the resources & support they need to have the family & births of their dreams. You can learn more about HypnoBirthing or HypnoFertility at Carol’s website at .

You can read HypnoBirthing stories from Carol’s clients at her blog at

Below, Carol shares with us her thoughts on utilizing holistic methods for fertility, pregnancy, birth, beyond.

1. What is your relationship to fertility, pregnancy, birth, and/or mommy/baby care, and how does your work relate to it?

I’m a mother of two children, ages 7 & 4 ½. When I was pregnant, I was frightened about the birth process. I was lucky enough to find out about HypnoBirthing classes & ended up having 2 wonderful HypnoBirths of my own. My 1st child’s birth was 7 hours long with 40 minutes of pushing & he came out with his hand up to his head. It was uncomfortable & intense at times but it was never excruciatingly painful, like I had thought it might be. My 2nd child’s birth was less than 2 hours long & was completely pain-free. I pushed 3 gentle pushes & only felt tightening & pressure.

I had grown up knowing that my mother had fertility issues & my older sister had to go on Clomid for both of her pregnancies. I anticipated having fertility issues & felt the stress & grief every month when I didn’t get pregnant month after month. I was able to get pregnant without having to need medical assistance, but I understand how wanting to get pregnant so badly & not getting pregnant can lead to a lot of stress & worry.  When it came time for me to return to work part-time, I decided to become a HypnoBirthing instructor. I felt that my personal experience having two amazing natural, unmedicated births would be helpful as a teacher. I’ve since expanded my practice and have become a hypnotherapist with a specialty in HypnoFertility. So now, I’m able to assist women trying to get pregnant & those that are pregnant have better experiences.

 

2. What inspired you to do the work you do?

My inspiration for the work that I do came from my own birth experiences. Before I had children, I was already in a helping profession as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Once I had my births, I felt empowered…like I had finally come into my own power. I had no idea prior to my birth experiences that I was capable of doing what I did. I became a HypnoBirthing instructor & a HypnoFertility practitioner so I could help women & their partners help themselves to be more aware of their own power over their mind & body. I love knowing that the work that I’m doing is helping people feel more relaxed & in control of their situations, more empowered—whether it’s their fertility issues or their birth experience.

 

3. What is the most important thing a pregnant woman or a woman trying to conceive should know about her body, giving birth, and caring for herself and her baby, based on your personal and professional experience?

I think the most important thing women that are pregnant or trying to conceive to understand is the power of fear. When a person is fearful or anxious about labor or about not being able to conceive, the body tenses up & sends out stress hormones that don’t allow the body to do what it’s naturally capable of doing. Fear & anxiety cause the body to fight itself & make birth more uncomfortable than it has to be & can cause complications to occur. Fear, anxiety & the chronic low-grade stress that occurs with a diagnosis of infertility can cause those same fight or flight hormones to be released causing the body to not send the appropriate hormones, blood & oxygen to the reproductive system so that the body can get pregnant either naturally or with medical assistance.

 

4. What is your biggest obstacle in supporting pregnant or trying-to-conceive women and/or babies?

One of the biggest obstacles I have had in supporting pregnant or trying to conceive women is the misconception of hypnosis. Most people that hear the “hypno” of HypnoBirthing or HypnoFertility just laugh & think that hypnosis is what they see at the fair—the people onstage clucking like a chicken & making a fool of themselves. They think that hypnosis being in a trance where someone else has control of their mind. What they need to understand is that all hypnosis is SELF-hypnosis, so if you don’t want to be hypnotized, you can’t be. But once you learn how to do hypnosis & learn how powerful your mind & thoughts are over what your body does, hypnosis becomes such a powerful tool to help you achieve your goals in a faster, easier manner because your body is relaxed & not in the fight or flight response.

 

5. Tell me your best success story.

I can’t pick just one success story. There are so many success stories: Women advocating & asserting themselves for what they want for their births; women that trust in their body, trust the process of hypnosis & have easy, comfortable birth experiences; partners that become so involved & supportive during the birth of their child because they now know what to do to help the mom in labor; women that have c-sections after wanting a natural, unmedicated birth that are still able to have positive birth experiences because of the knowledge they received in my classes; women that learn to relax & regain their life back instead of being overwhelmed with their fertility issues; and women that become pregnant after years of trying without success. Every one of my clients’ stories are success stories no matter how they turned out because they went into their experience relaxed, informed & educated so they could make the right choices for their specific situation. That is my personal goal for all of my clients & that is what success is to me.