5 days old

Here she is!
She arrived right on the due date (after me informing everyone only 5% of babies do so, so don't hold your breath) at 0200 on the dot. Jonna, the midwife who worked with us, did such a good job swaddling her - we're still trying to replicate the effect with no success.

The gory details
So in the end the labour kind of went like this. Guys, you probably don't want to read any further. But if you do, don't come complaining to me about people with the undesirable urge to write about everything on the internet.

Trickle, tickle
0830: Alex's sister, Elaine, calls from Malaysia to ask how things are going and describes her own experiences of childbirth. I'm sitting here saying no, no sign of the baby coming out, though it would be great if she did because my folks are arriving here tonight.

1000: First twinge. Was that a contraction? Not sure. Decide to sleep on it. Another twinge half an hour later. Hmm. Finally get out of bed and go to the loo. Come back and curl up on the bed. Suddenly there's a trickle and I think have I just wet myself? Not quite certain what to do. Decide leak does not smell like pee. Decide to have breakfast while working all this out.

1100: Have leaked some more. Decide might well be waters breaking. Also decide must be some divine reason why Alex's sister just called describing all the early symptoms to me. Call Alex but don't get him. Leave message saying am calling midwives to ask what to do. Leave pager message for midwives saying think that labour has started. For once, the message-taker guy sounds mildly excited instead of bored when he says "I'll send that for you right now."

1130: Alex calls back sounding much more excited and says he'll come right back after lunch regardless of what the midwives say.

1145: A midwife, Maggie, calls back. Tell her have leaked several times since and am experiencing very mild period pains every half hour or so. She confirms it sounds like my waters have broken and says to go to the hospital, where the staff will take a swab and say what to do next. Says is fine to wait for Alex to get back first. Will tell them to expect us at about 1400.

1320:Alex arrives home, slightly breathless from having run half the way.

Labour ward I
1400: Park down the road from the hospital and waddle into the ward on the third floor. Tracey, another midwife, directs us into the first room near the ward entrance. Then a student midwife comes along and takes my blood pressure and straps on monitors to check the baby's heart rate and my contractions. The speculum comes out, she takes a swab (needs more practice at being gentle!). Am a bit perplexed to be told the results - which will show whether I have an infection - will come in in 48 hours. Won't I have given birth by then?

Tracey decides to sweep my cervix (ie have a feel around) since, according to the contractions, it appears I've started to go into labour. Says I am 1cm dilated and that the baby has progressed quite low down into my pelvis. Says we will probably be back later this evening and baby will be out by tonight. Since she appears way more certain about this than us, she says we should probably come back around 8pm if not before.

1600: All this has taken forever and we are now starving. Agree to leave the ward and walk around back home for a bit before coming back later. Alex takes me home, straps on the TENS machine we hired and leaves me to nap while he goes to get lunch and pick up the chicken and pork knuckle I ordered from the butcher yesterday. Down a bottle of Sports Lucozade, which is a relief.

A little TENS
1640: Alex is back with chicken rice from Bugis Street. Have spent the last 40 minutes rather unsuccessfully trying to nap, as the contractions are like cramps now - not pleasant. The TENS machine does rather help, but it kind of distracts you from the pain than does anything to lessen it. Can't seem to eat anything. Feel nauseous after three mouthfuls so decide to leave everything there. Am starting to feel quite grouchy.

1700: Alex decides we'd better make contingency plans for my folks to get to the flat, since they're arriving at Heathrow at 1800. Calls Debbie and asks if she can meet them with the keys. Angel as ever, she says she'll pop by the house on her way back from work to pick up the keys and then swing by with them to let them in when they call her.

1815: Contractions roughly five or six minutes apart now and lasting 20-30s each. Decide I would like to go to the hospital now, while I can still walk, before the pain gets worse. Alex calls Dad - they've just landed at Heathrow - to let him know. It's one way of dealing with the boredom of customs and immigration there I guess. Alex parks in the basement and we make our way up. Am very relieved to get to the ward.

1820: Am slightly less relieved to hear Tracey saying "Oh I thought you'd be staggering by the time you came in! If you can still walk maybe you should go out and have a stroll around still." Am not sure if she is joking and am not very inclined to be laughing actually. I am smiling outside but cramping inside dammit! Very pleased when I get to lie down on the bed though. So pleased that when Annabel, another midwife, straps the machines on, the contractions start lessening in intensity and frequency (only slightly!) and am told to go walk around some more downstairs.

Arrgh, quite upset about this as would like nothing more than to curl up on the bed and go to sleep. But I see their point that doing this would only prolong the labour whereas walking will speed it up. So reluctantly allow ourselves to be booted out of the labour ward.

Manage two-and-a-half circuits of a couple of tables in a coffee lounge downstairs while Alex puts the overnight bag in the car before deciding to give up and concentrate on upping the TENS machine setting to more acceptable pain-distracting levels. Try to tough it out longer when he comes back but after only managing to sit at the table trying not to groan with the pain eventually break the bad news: I just want to go back to the labour ward.

Labour ward II
Feel slightly embarassed about wimping out on our return. Hang about on the uncomfortable waiting area seats (am convinced they are uncomfortable on purpose to discourage hangers-on) for about 20 minutes before deciding I really would like some pain relief. The TENS machine is on permanent 'contraction burst' mode and increasing the intensity of the stimulation only makes it uncomfortable now.

Ask Annabel if it'd be too early to start the gas and air and she says that's fine but do I want to hang on any longer as, if I want to do this without any pain relief, it may be a bit early to start on the gas. Without pain relief? Sense an uncomfortable encouragement of childbirth au naturel here and quickly tell her am happy to have the drugs as and when they might be most useful.

Even so, she offers to bring a gym ball in for me to sit on first as there are no pillows on the bed, so it won't be the most comfortable thing to sit on. So am sitting on the ball and curling over the side of the bed trying to ignore the pain as she hooks up a mouthpiece to the gas and air tube.

It sucks
Am dismayed by the mouthpiece. Where's the face mask? Arrgh it turns out you have to suck quite hard and deep on the stupid mouthpiece (have this absurd longing for it to be a giant hookah instead which, if nothing else, would have been more aesthetically pleasing) when a contraction starts. But the thing is, when a contraction starts, your mind is thinking "Ow, bugger, damn, here we go again, ow, ow,ow!" So it's quite hard to take deep long breaths through your mouth instead of taking just breathing quickly and trying to ignore the increasing pain.

Annabel tells me the shifts are swapping now, so she is handing me over to another midwife. At first am slightly annoyed at the change again because I originally thought Tracey would be my midwife and she looked and sounded reassuringly experienced in comparison to Annabel. But then decide was a bit apprehensive about having Annabel as the midwife anyway (so black is the mark against anyone even appearing to deny you pain relief) so am quite pleased after all.

Am also pleased to see the new midwife's name is Jonna (pronounced ee-o-nah), because we were considering calling Isabel Iona (pronounced eye-o-nah; an island in Scotland which is inexplicably beautiful). Through the haze of gas, some of which is working now, also think we can bond over people pronouncing our names wrong surely.

Also agree to have a medical student in the room. Slightly put off that it's a man but figure o well how else are they going to learn? As it turns out Nurich (or Rich, which is how I thought I heard him introduce himself) being a man was, I imagine, no different than if he'd been a woman.

About those contractions
The bits leading up to the point when I asked for an epidural are a bit of a haze now. All I remember is getting increasingly sleepy because of the gas - which also dehydrated me quite a bit - but also increasingly grouchy over the contractions. The thing about them is they really tire you out, never mind the pain. And though you have a few moments of relief after one ends, afterward you're just dreading the next wave. So I was sitting there in a pool of increasing misery and, in the end, though I'd had heroic thoughts earlier of remaining mobile and was open to the idea of foregoing pain relief if I could deal with it, I reached the point where I decided but if I don't have to suffer why the heck should I?

From about 1930 onwards I could probably go backwards through the alphabet to distract myself. From about 2000 onwards I was probably only able to count through the contractions (they start really hurting around 9, 10; hurt a lot more around 19, 20; and by the time I hit 27, 28 I'd be relieved the pain was easing) and by 2030 I was beyond caring if anyone heard me yowling about the pain and had tried going on all fours to ease it (not much help for me). Had also given up on the gas and air more or less as it was too tiring to suck on. Also am making all those times up as had given up caring what time it was long ago.

Poor Alex kindly asked if I wanted the MP3 player he'd bought specifically for this occasion turned on but I couldn't bear the thought of anything intruding on my attempt to not be miserable so made him turn it off.

At about 2115 I think I got lucid enough to ask what the time was and how much longer it was going to take. Jonna did a sweep and said I was 5cm dilated and that, at the rate I'd been going, it'd probably be an hour each additional centimetre before I was fully 10cm dilated.

Gimme the drugs please
That decided it for me. No way was I going through another five hours of this tiring painAsked when the best time for an epidural would be and she said now was good actually, as I was far along enough for it not to slow the labour, plus it would be really painful now but it wasn't too late for the epidural to start wearing off in time for me to push. So I said yes please give me one.

The anaesthetist was with another patient then so she said it'd be about 15 minutes before he could come but just knowing relief was round the corner was a bit more comfort. Had to endure the poor guy explaining all the risks etc involved before he could do it (and he politely paused while I had contractions though I was tempted to go yes, yes, don't stop, I can hear you over my groaning).

They put a drip into my left hand to make sure my blood pressure didn't drop. Quite fascinating watching them do this. The nurse said I was the first person who'd said it was and actually wanted to see what was going on - but I didn't find this squeamish at all. Felt a lot better after that actually - like I said the gas was really dehydrating. Then they sprayed something on my back to sterilise it I think, and got me to crouch over a pillow so my spine curled out clearly.

Alex was told he'd probably better sit in case he fainted as some partners had done before. I can't remember clearly what happened except that there were two contractions to get through and I told them as soon as I felt the first twinge as you have to keep really still when they insert the needle and line into your back.

I got through two before they were done but the anaesthetist was good - could feel the needle go in but no pain at all and then it was all the threading and taping of tubes and pipes and they were soon injecting the drug in. Phew. Contractions still a bit painful at this point but, again, just knowing of the impending relief was a comfort.

The drugs kick in
About 15 minutes later it was like - well not a miracle, but it was great, much better than I was hoping for. The contractions became not much more than a dull echo of themselves. I was certainly in no pain and I suddenly felt wide awake instead of dozy.

Now it got tiring for poor Jonna, Rich and Alex because I was suddenly on a high and would not stop talking (to be fair Rich was quite chatty himself). I also felt a bit bad because, earlier, Rich had tried making conversation and I'd mostly answered curtly with one or two words because he tended to ask questions in the middle of a contraction (needs to work on that). So was trying to make up for that.

Learned that Jonna was from Finland, had a daughter herself and was going back there soon. And that she was practically destined for midwifery because, she says, she comes from a family of eight and her mother's friends had loads of children so she's always been around them. Rich, it turns out, grew up in Reading and used to play loads of Rugby and is going to Imperial College. Poor Alex just looked very tired in that plastic chair he had to sit on. They kindly brought in a mattress for him to lie on but he never got round to using it to sleep for longer than a minute or two.

The last bit
Well around 1230 Jonna did another sweep and told me I was fully dilated. Asked if I wanted to try out the birthing stool. which I did actually, as it looks like it makes the most sense to help the baby down.

Tried to empty my bladder first as Jonna said it was quite full from the 1l drip they'd put into me and would block the baby's head on its way down. Couldn't, so they had to catheter it (no discomfort, only mildly embarassing).

But could easily walk around so got up and sat on the stool. The drugs were definitely starting to wear off - I could feel the contractions coming back and though part of me wanted to go ohh can't we make them stay away at least they weren't so bad as before so in comparison quite easily tolerated.

Now I could feel them in the small of my back as well as in front. So sat on the stool feeling a bit foolish for a bit as Alex was sitting in a chair behind me, with me between his legs, to support me; Jonna and Rich were sat on the mattress in front of me and there we all were, sitting, waiting for the baby to descend.

Her heart rate kept disappearing off the monitor because she kept moving around and at least that gave us some distraction. So the contractions kept getting stronger, and I could feel the baby move lower down into my abdomen and before they started hurting again Jonna got me to start pushing: "When the contractions start, take a deep breath, imagine you're pushing the air through your body and out your bum. Straight down, out of your bum OK?"

Of course this is doable when it doesn't hurt but later, when it starts hurting it's hard not to breathe shallowly or to give up in a gasp of relief. But you keep going on (note my self-preserving disassociation from even remembering the pain now!), because by this point you're thinking come on, come on, let's get this over with.

OK - the pain is not great. Yes, it really sucks. But the other part of it is true as well - once the baby's in your arms, nothing else matters anymore and it doesn't hurt as soon as the baby is out! Or maybe it does but compared with what you've just gone through, it's nothing.

So anyway, finally the baby's head is out, I'm going yoooow, but I can hear Joanna and Rich going "You're doing really well, Yin, really well - come on, one more push!")and then one more and it really was over - the baby's body slid out and, just like the movies, this little tangle of arms and blood on the mat immediately started crying.

She's out!
I only remember hearing her cry and (I think) Alex burst into gaspy sobs. Was quite preoccupied looking at her in dazed awe and sighing in relief at the same time. Joanna immediately wrapped her in a towel and then handed her to me - considerate enough to ask if it was OK to put her on my t-shirt as it would be quite messy.

We both started cooing "Hello baby, hello darling." And I swear she stopped as soon as Alex said his first words to her. Joanna and Rich busied themselves clearing the mess away and then eventually Joanna said she might have to give me a few stiches so did I mind getting up onto the bed.

Clambered up, had her put on my chest again and then I asked if I could feed her. Joanna said sure, so I did and boy, she went for it like a little animal. Which was quite relieving actually. Didn't have to worry too much about doing much. They left us alone for a few minutes so Alex took some pix and a very dark, grainy video and then they came back to weigh the baby, measure her etc etc.

Was on a complete high after this so even the stitching - OK I'll spare everyone on this; if you really want to know about it you'll have to ask - was relatively painless and afterward, I took a shower and Rich kindly made us some tea and toast. That was really welcome because we were both starving.

The morning after
We were given some time to finish the tea and toast and then Jonna moved us to the post-natal ward. Didn't stay long. We got there at about 3am and then Alex had to leave, so off he went. But baby wouldn't sleep and, because we kept rustling around and I had to turn on a lamp to feed her I was afraid she would wake the other babies. So spent a large part of the next two hours walking around the ward with her.

Next day was quite tiring insofar as her times to sleep completely clashed with those of the ward's - when it was quiet time she was awake and when she'd fall asleep the paediatrician would want to examine her or the midwife would or someone would yank the curtain open going "Tea time! Tea time!" so as soon as we could (about 5.45pm) we got ourselves discharged and home.

Parents expressed complete surprise at our leaving so soon but I was really pleased to be home.