Well, I wasn't expecting THAT!!!!!!!

I went into labour on Tuesday evening, and had a beautiful baby girl at home at 3.37am on Wednesday 3rd November. She weighed 7lb 1oz, and is perfect! We don't have a name, so far. Edit: today (Friday) we have decided on Isabelle Shannon

I certainly didn't expect to have my baby 12 days early ..(Merry, please forgive me!!!). It was my 3rd birth and I've never shown any signs before of going into labour early .. the first birth was induced 5 days before my due date, and the second was induced 10 days before my due date.

When I started feeling niggles around 7.15pm on Tuesday evening, I assumed it was slightly stronger Braxton Hicks contractions due to Tamsin jumping around on me, and as I had been warned by my midwife that, for a 3rd baby, I might well get some false starts and I know of many women who have had niggly contractions for days or weeks before the birth, I really thought it was just the beginning of that phase. I asked Bill to put Tamsin to bed, though, because I was feeling a bit uncomfortable with period-like pains. We had a friend here to help Bill move the furniture to make room for the birth pool, so I chatted with him till just after 9pm when Bill came down. Then I surfed the blog-ring a bit, until about 10pm when I told myself to stop being so ridiculous and go and lie down and listen to my hypnosis CDs to try and relax, because although I still didn't think it was the 'real thing', it was uncomfortable enough to be making me tense and anxious.

I listened to a CD for about an hour, and then came downstairs and told Bill I thought we needed to take this a bit more seriously. I still didn't really think this was 'it', but thought it would be a good idea to call the midwife just to come and check. In the meantime, I got in the shower, which felt good. I don't know what time the midwife arrived, maybe around midnight, by which time I was sitting in a deep bath. At around 1am, Tamsin woke up and came running along the landing to find me, and on finding me in the bath, leapt straight in with me and was then very upset because she was wet! I got out of the bath and lay down with her in our bed until she fell asleep (while I relaxed through the pains, which were coming maybe about every 5-6 minutes by then). I started to believe the baby was really coming!

When Tamsin was asleep, I went downstairs, to find that the birth pool was up but no water in it yet. I said I'd had enough and wanted to go home, and couldn't we all just stop this right now. The midwife asked if I wanted her to check how far along I was, and I said it depended whether she was going to give me good news or not! She asked me what I thought would be good news, and I said if she told me I was 6cm dilated, which I thought was a bit optimistic considering how well I was coping with the contractions! I thought it was entirely possible I was only at 2-3cm and that I had a very long time to go yet. She did check me, and announced that the birth hypnosis was working, because I was indeed at 6cm!! I wasn't entirely convinced that she wasn't just psyching me up, but she proceeded to phone the second midwife to come, and told her I was at 6cm, so maybe it was true!

I then started listening to my hypnosis Birth Guide CD, and it was extremely good. It contains suggestions that with each contraction, you will become more and more deeply relaxed, and indeed between contractions I was shaking and found it very difficult to relax, but as the contractions came I was able to relax deeply, which doesn't mean it didn't hurt, but I wasn't all tensed up through it. As transition approached, things got very intense and I resorted to the gas & air, and felt like I was losing my grip rather (but then don't we all!), and then extremely thankfully, pushing was fairly quick and short and VERY painful and intense and Bill described me as roaring like a lion, and then she shot out extremely quickly catching the midwife by surprise!

Big sister Tamsin woke up at 5am, and after a few minutes confusion until she woke up properly, was thrilled and delighted to meet the baby.

Briefly, the rest of Wednesday was tough, Thursday was a perfect day in almost every way, and today (Friday) I am officially worried because Isabelle is such a quiet sleepy baby that I can't help worrying about hidden heart defects and excessive sleepiness. I talked to the midwife about it a little this morning, but will press my concerns more tomorrow morning.

Seeing as it's taken me 3 days to get this far, I am going to actually publish this now, and hope to manage more later.