Just a few weeks before my due date of 1 June, my husband Jamie was accepted into police college 900km away and had to leave 3 weeks before the baby was due. Although we were anticipating this we thought it would happen after the birth so it was quite stressful as he would be gone for 19 weeks! As there are no flights during the night I prayed for a drawn out labour (!!) so that he could get back in time should things kick off late at night.

Jamie came back for the due weekend and I tried everything to bring on labour, I gulped a bottle of castor oil (truly a worse experience than labour!!), homeopathic remedies, huge long walks, membrane sweeps, nipple tweaking, hot curries, sex; anything I could find recommended on the Baby Forum!! The baby was quite happy to stay put though and with a repeat attempt the following weekend I still showed absolutely no sign of going into labour naturally. Finally I was booked in to be induced on 13 June.

At 7am on the day we went into the hospital and they inserted some prostaglandin gel, told me to go for a big walk and to come back at 2pm for another assessment. Nothing at all was happening by lunchtime except for very mild period pains so we drove off to McDonalds and sat on the beach for the last time as a childless couple.

At 2pm they put me on the monitor; all seemed fine but nothing really happening so some more gel was given. By 7pm I was still only getting fairly mild period pains so they attempted to break my waters but had no luck so my husband was sent home for the night. What a disappointment!!

I was kept hooked up to the machine and told to go to sleep; very hard with all the women in surrounding rooms screaming their heads off as they gave birth! I got very scared at this point and considered changing my mind about having a baby! The nurses kept checking the machine and at 2am they informed me that because the baby's heart rate was dropping with each (mild) contraction they were going to get things going immediately. So husband and midwife were called back and my waters were broken very painfully by an extremely rough registrar.

Strong contractions started pretty much straight away and quickly built up to be horribly painful; I was being sick with every 2nd or 3rd one which didn't make me feel any better so after 2 hours I asked for an epidural. It took about an hour before it was organized and taking effect but after that I didn't feel any pain at all. Bliss! My husband and I chatted away casually for the next 2 hours until my midwife checked me again at 7am.

I couldn't believe it when she announced I was 10cm and ready to push; I was only 1cm when the epidural was put in and I wasn't expecting anything to happen until lunchtime! I hadn't been pushing for long when they told me they would be using a ventouse to get the baby out as his heart rate was dropping quite a lot with contractions which signified the cord was around his neck. So by 8.05am out popped our gorgeous baby boy, Trey, 8.4 pounds.

There was some difficulty in the placenta coming out and they were about to wheel me into theatre and give me a general anaesthetic to remove it when my midwife advised me to breastfeed Trey to stimulate the hormones. He sucked straight away and with the help of the registrar (who had thankfully changed shifts with the witch who broke my waters) the placenta came out naturally.

I needed quite a few stitches as I had torn quite a bit in the hurry but these have healed very well and eight weeks later the pain has been forgotten and my memory is that it was the most exciting day of my life. Can't wait for another!!

Life after Birth -
The first few weeks were a bit scary ie. "oh no he's crying what do I do?" but I am gaining confidence every day and really enjoying motherhood.

Had a lot of trouble with breastfeeding - ie. cracked nipples, mastitis, abscess, low milk supply so have ended up bottle feeding - hopefully other Forumites can offer plenty of advice for how to go about it in a more positive way next time.

What Father says -
As he is still at police college - from his perspective parenting is extremely easy!! (ha ha wait till he gets home in six weeks he has a lot of night shifts to catch up on!)