Birth story: The last 8 hours or so

Some of you may be interested in this. Some may not. Some of you may be thinking "Gosh, I'm tired of reading about Ailbhe's birth, can't she think about anything else?" to which I say "I'm tired of thinking about my birth, and I'm tired of living with a lot of the aftermath, and I'm tired of feeling guilty for being obsessed with what is arguably the biggest and most traumatic experience I have ever and will ever have. I certainly hope it is anyway."

So now we know where we stand.

I stopped believing there was a baby; I thought I would be in labour forever, that there was no end. I couldn't remember a time before labour. I couldn't imagine my baby, because once the epidural kicked in I couldn't feel her anymore. There was the enormity of my bump, neverending, and the flaccid uselessness of my legs, and the ache in my back, but no baby, except occasionally I'd notice the heartbeat monitor when I tried to breathe or move and was stopped because the monitor on my flank lost the drumbeats somewhere and the green lines went flat...

Then there was terror, abject babbling hopeless terror, when I begged and begged them for nothing - I repeated "I'm afraid, I'm afraid," over and over, and told Rob "Don't leave me!"

I meant "Don't let them send you away."

They told me to push. I couldn't feel the muscles I was using but I flexed them with my brain somehow and I pushed. My belly caved in and sagged and I thought, quite clearly, "Does that mean I don't have to have a caesarian?"

Then they put a baby on the towel over my stomach, grey and odd, and I don't know what happened then. That wasn't real; that is the least real part of the whole experience. I don't remember my baby's birth very well at all.

I know I touched her, and said something fatuous like "That's my baby!" and I know that I asked Rob whether he had touched my - my - baby. I don't really knwo what happened though. They had to ask Rob to check whether she was male or female, because neither of us cared - it didn't occur to us to sex the thing on my stomach. When he said "A girl," I said "Then it's Linnea. Hello, Linnea." They took her away and as they carried her across the room she shouted - not a weeping cry, but a shout; it didn't sound at all unhappy or uncomfortable. I went into shocked rapture and asked everyone over and over "My baby has a voice! Did you hear my baby's voice? She has a voice!"

That was some of it.