I read the Mongan book and did a Calmbirth course (Aussie version of Hypnobirthing), but what I really found useful and totally worth it were the audio tracks from
https://hypnobirthinghub.com/ They basically have all of the hypnobirthing positive affirmations, relaxations and guided breathing techniques - and they are narrated in a great voice that meant that I listened to the rainbow relaxation for about a dozen times before actually making it to the end of the rainbow without falling asleep.
My labour experience was, however, somewhat similar to yours, with 4 hours 45 minutes from water breaking/first contractions/"are these contractions?" to baby in arms.
Pushing did take ~1 hour of that, and I had some tearing /got her out in 3 pushes: 2 to crown, 1 for head and body/; it's been too soon to say how hard recovery will be (although I can sit now, which is a win).
Nonetheless, I'm very happy I did the hypnobirthing stuff, since it reminded me to (1) breathe (even if I did that as screaming loudly, trying to keep my tone as low as possible), and (2) the whole pushing breath thing is supposed to be very good when pushing, and perhaps prevented me from having more serious tearing; the midwife guiding me, unfortunately, wasn't very helpful during pushing, so I had a lot of pain and wasn't quite clear on what I should be doing and how (she was like "Don't use your breath to scream/vocalise, use it to push - and I'm like: how do I push? Which muscles do I use? What *exactly* do I do with my diaphragm?).
If/when we have #2, I'm totally asking for more help in advance to figure out HOW I'm supposed to push. [And asking to be in the tub, not shower, for the pushing phase. My poor husband had to fumble with badly configured showers while I pushed to get the water where I needed it to be; that wasn't fun for him or me, and I think I'd have had less tearing/been better able to relax if I'd actually been IN the water/]
> couldn't go in the tub with a broken water
This doesn't make sense to me: in Australia, you *can* labour and birth in the tub or shower with broken water - why did they refuse you? Also, remember that if you have an epidural, you will be effectively immobile, and won't be able to take advantage of any water for not only pain relief, but muscle relaxation.