I was absolutely convinced I was going to be late.

It was a long hard slog being pregnant in one of the hottest summers in decades, with farmers complaining about droughts and me complaining about having a sweaty back.

My due date was originally May the 7th (based on LMP) which was revised to the 2nd after our first scan – I arranged to go on parental leave on the 22nd April and was thinking of ways to pass the time while I waited for our surprise package to arrive, imagining days (weeks even) of watching whole seasons of my favourite TV shows; cooking big meals and freezing them; and cleaning the house from top to bottom.

I had a midwife appointment up at the hospital so Judi could show me where to go when the time came, and she felt my huge belly. “The head must be engaged already,” she said, “I can’t feel it too well down here. She’s a tight wee bundle, it’s hard to tell.” I was convinced she was wrong – baby wasn’t head down at all. I could feel head and feet by my ribs. I should have been more determined.

Easter weekend arrived which was a very welcome break from a frantic time at work – Easter as well as the end of the financial year equals payroll hell. I lay in bed reading the paper talking to Marty about what I should do for April Fools’ Day this year to Mum, it’s hard to follow up a false pregnancy call and a faked police letter from previous years: but this year I WAS pregnant and close to my due date, too good an opportunity to let slide! I’ll tell her my waters have broken! No, we decided, that’s too cruel! She’ll never forgive me!

On the 1st April I was 35 weeks, 4 days pregnant. I had a really strange urge to squat as I was having a shower, and it just felt right. Relieving somehow. Had a pretty calm day, swanning around Spotlight for material and then sewing up some curtains for the baby’s room. Stopped sewing because my lower back hurt too much – overdone it again, better rest up on the couch. Had a nice relaxing afternoon while Marty was down at the pub. My ankles were swollen, as usual, but one was way more swollen than the other, is that normal? I wander outside to make him look - Marty looks slightly concerned (he always does). Better call Judi.

As I end the phone call to the midwife message service at 5.30pm, something starts trickling down my leg. “Either I just pissed myself, or my waters just broke”. Now Marty looks REALLY concerned. “I can’t see anything!” he says – his eyes scanning the ground around my feet anxiously – I’ve crossed my legs so tight that its only slowly starting to pool into my nice new slippers. We start making calls – Mum, midwife, a friend who works in NICU… Yep. Waters. Not piss. Judi tells me she will meet me at the hospital in half an hour but warns me we may be in for a long 48 hours, and the reality starts to dawn on us that within 2 days the baby will be here. I’m hobbling around the house with a towel between my legs and checking to make sure the waters are clear, and start packing. Make more calls in the car – Hayley (best friend), work – won’t be in tomorrow sorry! Contractions start coming gently in the car. They aren’t too bad.

I’m straight into delivery and my contractions start coming a bit stronger. They talk about the possibility of trying to stop/slow the labour to get some steroid injections in to mature her lungs.

Judi checks me over and at 6.30pm I’m 3-4 cms dilated – there’s no stopping this now! They give me a dose of steroids anyway and an IV goes in my hand and an antibiotic drip is started as a precaution (we never got to have the strep swab, around 36 weeks). These contractions are starting to hurt. Can’t talk through them anymore and Judi talks me through breathing them out.

2 hours later, Marty leaves for a second and when he comes back I’m standing over the bed throwing up. I stand up for a few contractions then he sits in a chair so I can kneel in front of him. Being on my knees definitely is the way to go so I stay put – just as I start to think I can’t take anymore and some drugs might be really nice (I thought I still had hours to go!), at 9.30 Judi tells me I should actually start pushing, that’s what that pressure is! We suddenly realize we don’t have a lot of time left in this and we had better call my Mum to tell her to get her ass to the hospital (she arrived with minutes to spare!).

Pushing is so relieving but it takes a couple of tries to figure out how to push and breathe properly. After what feels like a few minutes but is actually nearly half an hour, Judi sees meconium. “Jess darling, this baby is coming out bum first.” She said it so calmly and so casually you would have thought she was commenting on the weather. The doctors are notified and after another couple of pushes they make me get up on the bed and put my legs up in stirrups. That. Was. NOT. Fun.

7 minutes later after an episiotomy (ouch) and one rather loud expletive I feel a slippery feeling and then a warm slithery baby is put on my chest. It is a girl! 10.02 pm. 2.7 kgs, a pretty good size for a 35 weeker. She was born breech by normal vaginal delivery with no pain relief and every single second was worth it. I knew straight away I wanted to do it all again. She was an extended breech, folded completely in half with her feet up by her face. She was delivered unaided up to the shoulders but they manoeuvred her head out. The doctor and Judi had a rather hearty disagreement about the episiotomy and the doctor received a bit of a tongue-lashing! Judi felt it was unnecessary but what was done was done. I was just grateful that she was perfectly ok (Apgars were 10 and 10), there was no caesarean or forceps required and I stuck to my guns about the pain relief. It was all too quick to even think about an epidural, but I remembered afterwards Marty was pretty keen on trying the gas so I should have asked for it to at least been ready to go!

I was stitched up; a syntocin drip was started and my uterus massaged to stop the bleeding which was a bit too heavy. Her breathing was checked and she was put on my boob and started going for it – it was wonderful. It’s all such a blur, those first few moments, but the feeling of the warm wet crying baby is something you just can’t forget.

I was so prepared for a scrunched up face and a cone head but Ella was just perfect. Her bum took all the damage (it was bruised black and blue!) so her face, which popped out last, was just beautiful. She only took 4 and a half hours from the time my waters broke to arrive, but it feels even faster. The whole process seems crammed into a few quick minutes. I would have preferred a more private birth, perhaps a little less panicked, and no episiotomy – the healing definitely took a while and I adopted a strange waddle around the ward for the first few days – but in a way I’m relieved we didn’t know she was breech, because I got to deliver normally.

Ella spent the first night in postnatal with me but was admitted to SCBU first thing in the morning with very low blood sugar. I thought we would be there for a few days, 4 tops, but in fact it was the start of a 3 week stay. After the blood sugar issue was resolved she started having desaturations (low blood oxygen) because of small apnoea episodes and was put on caffeine to resolve the breathing problems. She was also struggling to gain weight so a nasogastric tube was inserted to top up her feeds after each breast feed. I learnt so much about caring for Ella while I was in there that I truly can’t imagine going home after 2 or 3 days and being on our own! The nurses in SCBU are amazing individuals and I couldn’t imagine doing it without their support as well as having an amazing baby daddy to rely on to keep me sane and bring me snacks – the food really is quite unpleasant. Eventually, on Friday the 19th April (she would have been 38 weeks), Ella was discharged and we were allowed to go home.