Pre-childbirth my experience of caesarean, never mind a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section), was limited to 'What to expect when you're expecting', which I saw when I was about 30 weeks pregnant and it terrified me. One of the women had to be rushed off for an emergency c-section in which she was drugged up to the eye-balls, completely unconnected from the birth and then nearly dies. Following that and lots of hippy books, I knew I didn't want one. I wanted to experience labour to the max, let my body take over, and all those primeval notions related to giving birth.

However, then I went into labour. On Super Saturday, as I was watching Mo win his second gold medal, I was thinking 'good for f*cking you, Mo, you dick. I wish I could have a c-section'. Entirely unconnected statements but I hated Mo (sorry Mo, I actually think you're lush, I just

Read More

Follow my blog with Bloglovin 

Thank you for sharing it with us!

As I'm typing this 3:25pm on the 1st of feb, I am to be admitted to hospital at 6:30pm tonight to get things going. My waters broke yesterday and sadly no contractions have started :(

But hey HO!

I too, like you, wanted a water birth, but know that it's not an option now!

So here I am 38weeks+3days, ready to bring my little girl into the world!

X

Kate, I'm thinking of you!! And, please don't be scared - I have been meaning to share this birth story for a few days now (but been stuck in a I-hate-January-rut - hurray for February!). I received a comment from Nikki a while ago about Hypnobirthing, so we had a brief exchange of emails at the time. Then a few weeks ago I got back in touch with Nikki to see how she got on. She

Read More

Have I got a treat for you guys!!

Recently I've been chatting to some of the lovely people who have taken the time to write comments on my posts to a) see how they are getting on and b) pick their brains for ideas because I tend to write about what's going on for me right here and now.

I have had some wonderful suggestions back and this particular post comes curtesy of my pregnant, soon-to-be-pushing, friends. Sophie, who is currently 21 weeks pregnant, in particular is interested in hypnobirthing and asked if I could I ask my nephew's mum for her story. Why hadn't I thought of this before? My own birth-story is one of planning something (in my mind, of course) and the opposite happening (here's what I wanted to happen, here's what actually happened) so this is an ideal, positive story we can all take hope from.

Almost a year ago Diane, Rowan's mum, had a

Read More

I can't believe it's nearly 2 weeks since baby Reuben was born - what a blur of feeding, pooing (him rather than me), burping, sleeping, crying and feeding some more! We've just had a visit from the Health Visitor and happily Reuben has put on 5oz. I thought he must have as he's been feeding like crazy and looks as though he's filled out a wee bit but it's nice to have that confirmed.

I've also forgotten what it felt like to be pregnant!

So what have the last 10 days been like with a newborn baby since we left the hospital? I'm not going to lie, the first night was a bit stressful. I'd been used to mini-Mike crying at night as he struggled to latch on but I'd been on the ward where the other babies were also crying and the midwives were just a button push away to help me

Read More

This time last week my little Reuben had just been born…Are you ready for this? Warts and all?!

Reuben Parker was born on Sunday morning at 9:47am, weighing 7lbs and 11 oz. He is the most perfect thing I have ever seen and I am completely overwhelmed by his loveliness!

I’ve been working on this all week, when I get chance and I’m going to be honest about what the birth was like (while I can still remember – I’ll need Mike to fill in some of the details as I’m already forgetting!) but for anyone pregnant with their first baby I want to remind you that I actively avoided detailed stories of birth in order to keep positive and help prepare myself in the way I felt best. So, I want to highlight the following before you read on:

1. It was the most amazing experience of my life (and already I’m

Read More

So, I think many of you will have heard that the super gorgeous baby Reuben was finally born on Sunday morning. He is just amazing and I plan to fill you in on all the gory details of the what felt like the world's longest labour soon (it's taking a while and very difficult with a new born and therefore very limited sleep!)...

Before that I wanted to tell you about our due-date date (I believe I refered to this as our final fling in my last post) on the anniversary of me turning 40 weeks pregnant - we decided that to celebrate each other and enjoy potentially our last opportunity we would have to go out for a meal together for a while (in theory), we would take the Labourmobile out for a spin to a gorgeous restaurant in Jesmond called Firenze for a romantic meal.

I was so convinced that there

Read More

You may find this appalling but I pride myself on my ability to avoid paying any attention to the news – yes, this sometimes means I have no idea what’s going on BUT it means I get to filter what I do find out about, thus avoiding things that’ll upset me, particularly with my current delicate constitution.

However, I can’t control what other people tell me and recently I’ve been caught out a few times. A few weeks ago I mentioned I was getting neurotic (37 weeks pregnant - neurotic) and this was after I was told about a blogger in Fife who lost her newborn baby a day after she was born. I have been worrying about this ever since. Then yesterday, I had managed to avoid the news that Gary Barlow’s 4th child had been still born until some pals came over. Despite my double plea for them not

Read More

So, I'm theoretically into my last week of my pregnancy - 39 weeks pregnant. I'm due next Thursday, 9th August, and I still have a piano and a sofa in my kitchen (well I did when I was writing this but then Mike's family arrived to move everything so now I don't). But, it's over now. The floors have been sanded, they are dry enough to put pianos and sofas on top of and to top it off for the first time in about 2 weeks we have a bathroom door. The luxury! And, as my mum pointed out yesterday, the kitchen will feel MASSIVE when there's no piano or sofa in it! Can't beat her optimism.

The bathroom door - yes, there's no doorknob and yes, it doesn't shut but nonetheless, it's a door!

In amongst all this mess I've been trying to remain calm in the hope that the baby

Read More

Yowzers. Another week passes.

Firstly, I can't believe that I have a fully grown (pretty much) baby inside me now. Even with the help of this 37 weeks pregnant picture I find it really hard to imagine (courtesy of ask a mum)!

Secondly, I literally can't keep up and everything is beginning to feel a bit overwhelming. I know when I think about it logically (with Mike's help) that it is all fine but my crazy baby brain isn't logical and I barely slept last night for thinking about things. I'm not entirely sure what, just things.

We moved back into our house yesterday after 3 and half weeks away. I'd really been looking forward to it but once we got back the amount that still needs to be done (preferably in the next week so that I can properly relax and let baby know that we're ready for it to come out!) freaked

Read More

I'm now 32 weeks pregnant and every time a week passes, a new (often terrifying) thing is brought to my attention.

32 weeks pregnant getting ready for boxercise

Perineum. There's a word I didn't know before I got pregnant. It's the bit between your vagina and bum hole, and up until now I only knew this area, affectionately named by VIZ (a vulgar yet hilarious magazine that hales from Newcastle), as "the Humber Bridge". The reason it has recently come to my attention is because I've just found out that poor little bit can TEAR during child birth.

There's an element of 'surely there are worse things to be worrying about during labour?' Such as the excruciating feeling of each contraction and making sure you're baby comes out free from distress and as healthy as possible, etc. etc.

While this is true and a little bit of tearing will heal fairly quickly, I still

Read More