"With a Stitch-Stitch Here and a Stitch-Stitch There..."

In hindsight, it was probably my insistence on clearing out the entire giant pomegranate display at Sainsbury's yesterday morning after my midwife appointment that was to blame.  The midwife had shaken her head ruefully after probing my swollen belly and declared, "Only 5% of babies actually arrive on their due date...I'm going to book you in for a sweep in one weeks time because this baby hasn't moved all the way down yet".

So after struggling across the common with three heaving bags on the half hour walk home (silently thinking how in trouble i would be if the husband or one of my sisters saw how much i was carrying) it's safe to say that the last thing I imagined I would be doing later that day would be squeezing out an 8 lb 15 oz(!!!) baby from a place nothing that large should ever exit from.  Nuff said.

Late afternoon found me in a bath, over confident that there was no way this baby was coming anytime soon.  Then the weird little inside pains started...and I began to wonder.  So infrequent were they, and so varying in length, that I felt a little stupid mentioning them to my sister.

"Call your husband and tell him to come home" she demanded.

"No" said I.  "These are FALSE labour contractions - I'm sure of it."

"But ON your due date?" she quizzed skeptically.

So against my better judgement I rang the husband, disturbing him mid-meeting, and mentioned that he might want to think about coming home a tad earlier than normal.

To his credit he returned in record time, noting with alarm that I was by this time having somewhat regular contractions but yet still in full denial that it might actually be the real thing.

Luckily my sister had her sensible head on and insisted I finish packing my hospital bag and call a cab.

We didn't get there a moment too soon.  The 25 minute cab ride was spent bending and twisting the husbands hand out of shape whilst clenching my thighs in panic and trying to ignore the Sikh cabbie who was making lame small talk and driving a touch too slow given the circumstances.

As we stormed into the hospital at 6:40pm (I recall clocking glorious Big Ben) I was finally beginning to accept that the likelihood of me being turned away due to false labour was decreasing at an exponential rate. Yep...this was happening.

Ensconced in a birthing pool an hour or so later, sucking for dear life on a tube of gas and air, I found myself in the depths of hell, feeling for all intents and purposes as if I were being crucified from the inside out (anyone who has gone through natural labour will wince in acknowledgement).  Yes I was in a birthing pool, but let's face it - that's about as useful as skydiving with a broken parachute when it comes down to it.

At that point I had no idea that I was about to give birth to an oversized baby with a giant head.  Several agonising stitches later, whilst high as a kite on gas and air would put paid to that but at the time I just remember thinking that death would be blessed relief.  Thank goodness it was relatively quick...my sweet wonky midwife with her bowl cut and a toothy grin had just enough time to deliver the little guy before her shift ended at 8:20pm.

So bish-bash-bosh.  A day which began with a pomegranate binge and ended with me sipping sugary tea in a private room overlooking Big Ben and gazing adoringly at the sweetest little boy in the world...who would have thunk it.

Welcome to the world little man...x