Albert was born at the end of February a few days or so late and is now seven weeks old. We started off at home/in the very nice birthing centre in St Mary’s, but after a day and a half (and 24 hours after my waters had broken), and having only got to 4cm, they induced me (they have a policy of inducing 24 hours after waters have broken so we got a few hours by bending the truth but not more) and Albert didn’t like it too much. His heartrate kept dropping, and after a while dropped and didn’t go back up so they rushed us in for an emergency c-section which was a bit of a surprise!

They were absolutely brilliant and from the second they pressed the emergency button to having him in my arms took no longer than five or six minutes. Incredible. It has definitely made the first couple of months quite physically and as a result emotionally difficult though. It’s been hard not being able to lift him properly and just generally being in a position of recovering from a big operation with a brand new baby…they’re not joking when they say it takes three months to get over a c section!!! But I’m finally starting to feel a bit normal again now – and from what people say, the emergency c sections are a lot more physically draining than the planned ones. I’m hoping that next time round I will be able to go ahead and deliver the way that nature intended! It’s strange having not gone through that whole process, but we could not have got through the initial 30 odd hours of labour without the breathing and visualisation exercises anyway! So we had plenty of practice for next time…

Much love Jas and James