Writer Beware (a group that exposes those who are scamming innocent/ignorant writers) often hears from self-published authors who are convinced they’re being ripped off by their self-publishing services–but it’s more likely that their expectations were unrealistic.

Kids, major publishers aren’t out to gleefully reject you – they WANT to publish good books. They’re just aware that the market is lacking. Self-publishing is certainly not going to change that fact.

And here’s a picture of a cat, as per usual – but with a bonus baby and CJ, as our family gets used to one another:

And now, your weekly book review:

It’s clear Mann likes Sherlock Holmes, and has imitated Conan Doyle’s work – with certain deliberate differences. “Watson” is now a pretty and intelligent woman (except she didn’t seem very intelligent to me, no matter how many times “Sherlock” told her she was), the supernatural usually is the explanation, and that observant-detection thing comes up exactly once (when his boss shows up at 4 in the morning, he deduces based on his outfit that there’s been another murder. . . when actually, his boss showing up at 4am makes that fact perfectly obvious).

“Sherlock” is a detective with an opium habit and a passion for the occult (but only the real occult – his first scene shows him mocking a fake spiritualist). “Watson” is exactly the standard “common-sense woman who makes people gasp as she dares to investigate crime scenes, etc” that is rare for the historical setting, but extremely common in the fictional one.

The plot is about a suspicious airship crash (while London is also having issues with a mysterious “glowing policeman” who kills people, and a zombie plague). Sidebar: What is it with steampunk and zombies?

Fundamentally, this book is adequate. It has plenty of cool factor and gentlemanly behaviour, and the writing could be a lot worse, but I was soon looking forward to finishing it. Someone who had never read steampunk before would probably be delighted with it. There’s far too much discussion of the case (needs less talky-talky, more aieee! Zombies!) although the action does increase somewhat towards the end.

Rating: PG for some gory zombie moments.

Sample (this isn’t representative of the book, but when I opened to a random page I realised it was highly representative of the low-quality writing):

Newbury was astounded: “Bravo. Bravo, indeed!” He glanced from Villiers to Chapman and back again. “This is indeed a revolutionary invention. What else can it do?” He was clearly enthused.  

This is the last steampunk book review I have prepped. I haven’t forgotten that I promised a map of the literary steampunk scene. It will have links back to a number of steampunk reviews, hence me posting them now rather than later. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

In general we have a very simple lifestyle designed fundamentally to avoid housework or any unneccesary exertion (for example, we don’t own an iron – CJ’s shirts drip dry on the line, and I avoid buying clothes that wrinkle). Almost the only additional thing I could do pre-baby was to grow out my fringe, thus avoiding the need to use a hair straightener each day. It’s a good thing too, because even brushing my hair was sometimes beyond me while I was pregnant.

And, we bought a dryer. So, so useful on sick or rainy days.

I stocked up before and during pregnancy on frozen meals, and on pretty much any food or household item that doesn’t go off in a hurry – soap, toothpaste, tinned tuna, frozen meat, and so on. Again, very handy.

In January last year I went crazy with my writing and by the time I fell pregnant I was several weeks ahead on the twenty-hour weekly writing quota I’ve stuck to since the beginning of 2006. Those extra hours were meant to cover the early days of motherhood, but instead I used them up during pregnancy. I did finish last year’s quota, however, and decided it was time to finally give up my precious twenty hours a week. Which is not to say I’ll stop writing (hah!) – I’ll just write when I feel like it, and not worry about the amount of time I spend doing it. (Some people would stop writing under these conditions. As this blog shows, I am not one of them.) That takes the pressure off.

I also gave Gimli and the smaller of our two fish tanks to a friend. She enjoys having fish, and I have slightly less pet maintenance to do.

I should probably mention that Gimli is a fish. . .

My friend bought him a harem of female guppies to keep him happy, which they most certainly did.

 The moral of this entry is that simplifying one’s life is indeed awesome, particularly when preparing to have a baby.

In utterly unrelated news, I’ve lost another four kilos in the last week as my body says goodbye to all the excess fluid of pregnancy. That makes me feel pretty good. I can wear my shoes (with considerable difficulty) and yesterday I managed to jam my wedding ring back on my finger.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the greatest plan. I removed the ring immediately after taking this photo (soap and cold water was involved). Presumably this means I’ll continue to lose weight rapidly for a bit longer. I’m certainly not complaining.

And now for your cuteness quota of the day. I like to call this photo “Ninja Baby” and presume that if an enemy approaches her in this position she will punch out their lights before she opens her eyes.

It’s a skill for life.

Observant readers will notice that this entry has appeared only a few hours after last entry. Yesterday I ran late; today I’m running early (like, “midnight plus thirty seconds” early). Tomorrow (Friday) there’ll be another book review, since I THINK I’m now finally finished all my pregnancy/early baby days entries. Or at least I’m up to today.

For now.

Observe, and judge for yourselves:

I mentioned in that epic labour entry last Wednesday that giving birth wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The real hardest thing I’ve ever done is to endure seven years of mental illness (which, may I say, I’ve done spectacularly well, keeping almost all of my friends and never causing harm to myself or others – plus I somehow managed to snare CJ in there, which is definitely my most impressive life achievement thus far). My anxiety disorder has made me unable to support myself financially (which unfortunately has always been my concept of adulthood, and far less than I planned to do with my life – I was going to devote myself to the poor in Indonesia, and had consciously prepared and trained to do so for twelve years). But I was right: it gave me certain skills.

All of which is to explain the full context (ie my mind and body) of the following journey:

From late Tuesday (day two) breastfeeding was very painful, and something I dreaded. With each suck I felt unpleasant faintness in my whole body, as if someone was hitting my funny bone over and over. By Wednesday it made me feel like I was about to faint and made my whole body shake – an echo of the way it shook with the pain  of childbirth.  

When the midwife visited on Wednesday (day 3), we discovered that Louisette was dehydrated due to my lack of milk. Apparently it’s extremely rare for a woman to produce so little milk that her newborn is in danger. Not only did this mean we had to give her formula (which I was well aware would make the problem worse), but it felt awful. One of my peculiar foibles is that I tend to think in symbols and archetypes – so much so that I’m unable to give blood, because blood is too powerful as a literary symbol of life itself (ZOMG, the vampires are TAKING MY BLOOD!) So finding out MY BOOBS DON’T WORK AND MY BABY WILL DIE WITHOUT MEDICAL INTERVENTION was devastating. So the faintworthy pain of breastfeeding was accompanied by devastating depression.

I’d heard a great deal about the hormone crash and painful arrival of milk on day 3/4 after birth, and had carefully and repeatedly announced that I’d see absolutely no-one on those days. Thank goodness for that.

I’d been feeding Louisette on demand, and on the midwife’s advice immediately switched to feeding her (or at least trying – she is one extremely sleepy baby) every three hours – twenty minutes of breastfeeding (so my breasts were still getting the signal to produce milk, and would hopefully tune in at some point) followed by a bottle. From that instant, Louisette’s health improved – and I began to live in three-hourly bursts. I’d slept fairly well (between feeds and crying) on the first night, but had been so excited and happy since then that even when I lay down to sleep I tended to have trouble dropping off. I was vaguely aware that this was a bad thing. 

On Thursday we went in to hospital for a variety of health checks. I was perfectly upbeat in the morning (still so excited between bouts of sobbing that I couldn’t get myself to sleep properly when I had the chance), and took the trouble to dress Louisette in an especially gorgeous manner (the red dress and booties). The midwives in the birthing centre nearly came to blows over who could claim her as “their” baby.

I saw a lactation consultant who said various useful-type things. Towards the end, I mentioned I’d been trying to stimulate more milk production with a breast pump and with my hand, and neither had produced a drop. I showed her the pump, and she explained it was the wrong type for early breastfeeding. When I showed her my clumsy attempt at hand expressing, I saw a look of, “Oh, how VERY stupid” flash across her face before she caught it – and explained how to do it properly. (The birthing class demo – with an attractively knitted prop breast – apparently didn’t work for me at all.) Within moments, I saw a couple of drops of milk – my milk, real milk – for the first time. This was enormously encouraging, and I went home delighted.

My midwife is aware of how much my bad pregnancy has cost in financial terms, and whenever there is something we need she does her best to get us a free one. She gave us nipple shields to reduce the pain of breastfeeding, and lent us the hospital’s clanky but effective double electric breast pump (double = takes half the time, and electric means it will help stimulate more milk production rather than simply taking what’s already there).

Artist’s impression of the breast pump:

It was a very long hospital visit because there were a variety of people we needed to see. The lactation consultant had told me to use the pump for 10-20 minutes each hour in addition to everything else. She’d emphasised it was vital for me to think loving baby thoughts when I used it, or my milk wouldn’t flow.

As soon as I’d attempted to feed Louisette I attempted the pump for the first time. It was very awkward to hold it in place and all I got for my twenty minutes’ of muscle pain (muscles still aching from giving birth) was a couple of drops of milk. Cue more desperate, helpless crying. So much for loving baby thoughts. The long hospital visit had brought back my labour-exhaustion shakiness, even when I lay down in bed to sleep. Louisette had also suddenly developed a very gross eye infection – yuck.

Thursday was similar. Plenty of sobbing and almost no sleep. Finally around midnight, after another pathetic feed (as Louisette grew noticeably less interested in my breasts – a very bad sign for the future) I lay down to sleep. Addled by sleeplessness, hormones, and depression, I had an episode that reminded me strongly of a schizophrenic woman’s description of a psychotic attack (in an Andrew Denton doco). I fell into a kind of dream of mother and baby, but I wasn’t asleep. In my dreams I’m often a different person (every so often I’m Buffy, for example – or a man) but I always have a sense of self.

I had no idea who I was. I was fairly sure I was a one-week old baby, helpless and confused by the world. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know where or who I was. All I knew was that something was wrong and I couldn’t fix it myself. Rather intelligently, I said, “Help, help” until CJ woke up. Even more intelligently, I explained what had happened as well as I could (and later reported it faithfully to the midwife, despite how stupid it all sounded in daylight). Even more more intelligently, I decided to skip the 4am feed and let CJ just give Louisette a bottle.

That night, my body remembered how to sleep again. I was still very depressed the next day, but the worst was over. I’ve had a couple of times when I woke up and didn’t know where I was for just a second (as if I was on holiday), but I’ve been more careful about my sleep (within the realm of the possible – last night I had four hours in a row, which is very rare; a mix of luck and planning) and all the depression is gone.

From Saturday, I began to see genuine improvement in my milk flow, thanks to that breast pump (it’s nice to have measurable progress, and we’re getting along fine now). Since then, Louisette has been taking a little less of the formula. This means she’s getting more milk.

She also has a blister on her lip from her inability to attach properly, but that should go away soon (her eye infection is long gone). Yesterday she had her tongue tie cut (an operation about as complex as cutting one’s fingernails), and she seems to be much more patient with my breasts (now she’s getting a better flow), although the different shape of her mouth is confusing her a little.

Things are good mentally. I believe I’m being rational when I say that the last week – including labour, and including the lack of sleep and my first ever true break with reality – has singlehandedly made up for the last seven years of seemingly meaningless pain. I also think it’ll help me feel better about my novel writing attempts (there’s an epic tale there, but it’s long, boring, and depressing) for at least the next two years (by which time hopefully I’ll have a major publisher signed for at least one of my books).

I’m also cautiously hopeful about how my mental illness will react to my being a mum. It was noticeably dampened during pregnancy (weird but true: I was less anxious while pregnant than I am usually), and I began to wonder how nine months of intense chemical goings-on would affect what is, after all, a chemical imbalance in my brain. Perhaps pregnancy would hit a kind of “reset” code. Many women become mentally ill because of chemical goings-on and major lifestyle change. I may just head in the opposite direction.

Maybe. We’ll see. Either way, I have plenty of rational reasons to be happy. I have a beautiful, extremely pleasant little girl, and my life has a sense of purpose I lost seven years ago, and have badly missed ever since.

CJ and I acquired a new fridge for free when someone in our church community moved interstate. The seal was encrusted with something unidentifiable and black, and the glue holding the seal to the door had failed around the bottom, making it drag on the floor. It was dirty inside and out – so much so that it took me a long time to dare to clean it, and I only tried it once. Some things should not be looked at directly. But it DID safely freeze meat, so that was nice.

We discovered early on that milk stored in the door – or indeed anywhere near the front of the fridge – would go off. I also noticed that cheese stored near the back would go oddly soft. One day, in a fit of annoyance, I cut off the lower segment of the door seal and threw it away. That probably didn’t help.

I had my father-in-law look at the fridge, but it was beyond even his skill to heal.

But it didn’t end there. My parents-in-law had been planning to buy a new fridge for the kitchen renovations they’d done. Images of our dodgy fridge preyed on my OH&S-oriented father-in-law and their fridge-buying schedule suddenly sped up. . . leaving their old fridge free for the taking.

And we took it. Oh yes, my precious. We took their enormous side-by-side father-in-law-modified Westinghouse beauty, and we made it our own.

Last Saturday, as the midwife and Louisette and I discussed breastfeeding in Louisette’s room, various menfolk disposed of our old fridge and brought in THIS:

My mother-in-law even cleaned it for us. After three years of glorious marriage and hideous fridge, it’s enough to make one misty-eyed. I may have hugged the fridge once or twice, and I can’t help saying an affectionate hello every time I open the door.

Look inside! Look at the space! Look at the shiny whiteness of it all! Look at the milk sitting so prettily in the door! Look at the way all the most useful stuff is at the most useful possible height, so I don’t have to kneel and dig around to find it! We’ve set aside the top shelf just for things that I need to remember to eat, or that I plan to use for dinner that night.

And the freezer. . . oh the freezer! There’s so MUCH of it. I can CATEGORISE to my OCD heart’s content! Oh, *swoon*!

Look! We’re at the end of the entry and I didn’t mention Louisette even once!

Oh.

-very painful feet and ankles

-massive weight gain

-varicose veins

-huge numbers of moles (the skin kind, not the rodent)

-gestational diabetes

-dental problems or other bone issues due to calcium going out of mum into the baby

-high blood pressure

-complications at the birth

-ugly baby

-colicky baby

So THAT’s nice.

In a shocking break from recent tradition, I will NOT be talking about Louisette tomorrow, or posting another photo. I’ll actually be writing a good old-fashioned “Daily Awesomeness” entry. Then on Wednesday I’ll post all about breastfeeding (including the results of getting Louisette’s tongue tie fixed, which is happening tomorrow and will probably have instant results) and my mental state.

To tide you over, here is a near-fatal dose of cuteness that will have to last you until Wednesday (unless I snap and post something tomorrow after all). Regular readers will recognise Louisette’s cousin. Louisette is honestly getting prettier every single day.

It’s less than a week since I gave birth to a mathematical impossibility. My cervix was dilated to 10cm, which, when multiplied by pi, gives a circumference of 31.4cm. Louisette’s head had a circumference of 37cm (the average is 35cm).

And so it is that biology triumphs over mathematics.

I lost five kilos just by giving birth (Louisette and the afterbirth, basically) and I’ve lost another two or three kilos since (as I literally piss away a whole lot of extra fluid – I now have ankles again, although it’ll take another week or so until all the fluid is out of my system). My belly is extremely soft and sloshy (painfully so at first when I moved, or lay on my side without a pillow underneath to hold it up), and about the same size as it was at four months. It’s still big, but shrinking, and only a tiny bit sensitive. I get some twinges as my organs and uterus return to their normal state, but they’re incredibly mild.

The muscle pain after the birth was worse than the muscle pain from pregnancy (the hormone relaxin loosens your muscles months in advance, and stops holding your bones etc together as well as usual), but also nicer – because it’s recovery pain instead of the wrong-feeling hormonal stuff. Plus it improved rather than sticking around (although my back and arm pain grew worse for a while because of the awkward positioning of early breastfeeding when my muscles were just sick of trying). Six days later, my muscles feel tired but not painful, except my lower back and hips when I turn over in bed after lying down for more than an hour - there are still unsupported bones shifting in ways they shouldn’t. But three seconds after turning over/sitting up, I feel fine again. Since I’m no longer in constant pain or nausea, it’s a lot easier to take a few seconds of pain.

My girl parts aren’t all that bad, although initially they hurt when I sit (duh) or stood (gravity). They improved dramatically by the day. Now they feel mildly bruised, and only actually hurt when I’ve been sitting or lying down in the same position for more than an hour before shifting position. Again, it’s only for a few seconds. I’m really surprised at how non-painful they are (I take panadol when I think of it).

Standing up for more than about a minute makes the muscle and girl-part pain increase – so I don’t stand up For the first few days I often walked like the expository orc from Lord of the Rings 3 – the one with the weird hunch who explains Shelob’s eating habits. Perhaps orc women are as difficult to recognise as dwarf women, and he was a new mum.

I also don’t lift anything heavier than Louisette, because that hurts too. I’m very mildly nauseous in the afternoons as I slowly go off zoloft, but the idea of anything making me throw up is now ludicrous.

Altogether, I feel great already, and I sometimes have to remind myself not to be too active. Being not-pregnant is AWESOME. It’s everything I dreamed it would be. I’m eating, drinking, wearing elasticated clothing (especially bras. . . oh how I missed being able to wear bras without nausea and pain!), and brushing my teeth with joyful abandon.

Altogether, it’s astonishing how quickly the human body recovers from birth – in my case, anyway. It really is a natural process despite how unnatural it all sounds. I’ve also, despite my lack of sleep, finally shed the dry cough I had from first trimester. So it’s true: bad pregnancy, easy birth.

To be fair, Louisette is one of the easiest babies in the world. She literally sleeps for twenty hours a day – we’ve barely seen her open her eyes, and she even breastfeeds with her eyes closed (the gorgeous photo below was taken yesterday, five days after the birth - it was the second time her eyes were open, and the first time she met my gaze). She has been grumpy (“arsenic hour” as it’s called – when a baby cries for no reason, often at around the same time each day) exactly twice. Taking her to China in a couple of months is going to be a breeze (I was terrified I’d end up taking a colicky baby on a nine hour flight, since I’ve heard several horror stories of colicky newborns from both sides of the family). She had a gunky eye which looked like it might be infected, but we gave her some drops and it’s already cleared up (which is good, coz it was gross).

I know from “Mythbusters” that my pain threshold will be higher from now on, but for a few days after the birth  if someone told me I was about to get a paper cut, I’d probably have collapsed into tears at the thought. The mild pain of breastfeeding (yes it’s mild now – and today has been wildly successful in breastfeeding terms – details later) is no problem now.

I’ll be talking about the interesting mental and hormonal journey of this week pretty soon. It seems to be over already, leaving me saying, “Really? Is that all you got?” But I assure you I have a tale to tell.

In the meantime, here is a rare picture of Louisette with her eyes open (they are stunningly beautiful with a gradual progression of blue to grey from the outside in):

Other than the fact that Louisette, until Gene, doesn’t need makeup to look pretty, the major difference between the two is that they represent different ends of the “tongue length” spectrum. Louisette has an extremely minor condition called a “tongue tie” which means that she can only stick her tongue out a tiny tiny way. This wouldn’t matter at all, except it means she’s physically unable to attach properly to the breast.

That, in turn, means much more pain for me (at a certain point each suck was like getting slashed across the nipple with a sharp knife, and there was a little blood) – a problem that has already been solved by my using an annoying plastic device called a nipple shield with each feed until things are better. It also means less milk coming out – which, because breasts work on a supply and demand basis, means the breasts don’t produce enough milk (mine were slow starters anyway, I suspect).

Louisette became dehydrated, and had to drink formula (while still breastfeeding – or my milk would stop completely). She is flourishing on the formula, but is having the usual response to formula in that she is less and less enamoured of the more difficult process of getting milk from the breast. . . which again means less milk production. To try to keep my [insert descriptive swear word here] breasts doing their job, I’m getting her to breastfeed more than once every three hours (each feed takes about an hour, so getting even two hours’ sleep at a time takes careful planning and a certain amount of luck – not to mention continuing the strict anti-visitor policy I’ve had from day one). I’m also using an electric breast pump (just as weird and ridiculous as it sounds) and my hands to constantly remind my breasts to keep functioning like breasts.

So far, it’s not going particularly well. Worst case scenario, this endless bizarre circle will continue for days or weeks – and there are no guarantees I’ll be able to breastfeed by the end of it. But Louisette will be fine either way, so who really cares?

The good news is that, as you may have noticed, breasts don’t come with an on/off switch. They tend to produce milk (sometimes with alarming suddenness) in response to a baby. Which means it’s a medical necessity for me to think gooshy thoughts about Louisette, and to spend time with her when she’s at her cutest. (I’m having some interesting mental issues which I’ll write about later, but there’s still plenty of gooshy pro-Louisette feelings for me to work with.)

The other good news is that a tongue tie is such a common condition it was even covered in our birthing classes. It’s also extremely easy to fix – so easy, in fact, that they don’t use anasthetic (I suspect because the anasthetic shot would hurt more than the procedure itself, which is basically one cut to the skin beneath the tongue). Louisette will be a little more like Gene Simmons by this Tuesday.

Whether that makes the world better or not is a matter of musical taste.

“Mothstorm” is the third book in Philip Reeve’s “Larklight” trilogy. Each book stands alone, although there are spoilers if you read them out of order.

Uh-oh. Here comes another mighty force of giant interstellar insects. How terribly vexing.

Art Mumby is hurled into yet more adventures, armed only with British Pluck (which is of course all a growing boy needs – his sister is far more concerned about keeping her ankles decently covered in zero gravity and/or while being abducted again). It is Christmas time, and within a few pages the first adventure occurs – the pudding has gone rogue!

Fortunately the motley (and predominantly alien) crew of space pirates has just arrived, and the pudding can be hunted down before it breeds its vile spawn. It is, as always, a close-run thing. Such is life in the Larklight household (which orbits the moon and is rather older than one might think).

Our heroes face their most formidable and mysterious enemy yet. This book matches the sheer hilarious genius of the first book in the trilogy (“Larklight”, for those who were absent two weeks ago). This book is, quite simply, flawless. If you want great characters – you got it. Lots of laughs – no problem. High adventure – naturally! An alternate 1800s society that has expanded Britain’s colonial interests into space – certainly! If you like your humour satirical – you have that too (but it won’t leave the children behind, either).

Other than babbling some more, there’s little I can say. So without further ado, here’s the opening page of the book, which I think tells you all you need to know.

Free sample:

‘Dunderhead!’

‘Clodpole!’

‘Ninnyhammer!’

‘Booby!’

‘Nitwit!’

‘Gumph!’

Yes, ‘twas the season of Peace and Goodwill at Larklight, and my sister Myrtle and I, snug in our fleece-lined, winter-weight spacesuits, were out upon the front porch, decorating our Christmas Tree.

Rating: G (unless you have a child who’s unusually phobic of insects)

Warning: Philip Reeve also writes very dark books that are definitely NOT child-friendly.

I just read these notes for the first time. My comments are in colour.

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When I arrived Louise was in a chair receiving saline through a drip. She had a contraction almost as soon as I arrived, excusing herself like a true lady. CJ held her hand and rubbed her arm as she tensed and repeated “ow, owww” in increasing and then gradually decreasing intensity. I was impressed by her restrained verbalization, and also her consciousness and sanity between contractions considering the brutal lack of sleep and real rest she had had for the past several weeks and especially the whole of the previous night. She was shuddering between contractions, sort of extreme shivering or early sudden onset parkinsons all over her body. The midwife took her temperature but it was more about exhaustion and body intensity than cold. Pretty soon after I arrived, doing some small gesture of hand holding and arm rubbing and verbal encouragement, the intensity had increased to the point that it was difficult for her to remain seated, and thus a move to the bath was needed. She moved there and enjoyed the water for a moment or two before another contraction arrived. Even as the intensity of the contractions continued to increase and her energy began to wane she took the pain with resilience. At worst the “ow’s” got louder and she sobbed slightly, but at each stage she stayed as positive as possible, polite, considerate and conscious of what was happening.

Just before she got out of the bath to have her membranes (waters) broken by the midwife the “ow’s” turned to “fuuuuuckkkkkk”. I was proud of how long it took to get there, and the extra meaning seemed to give more emphasis to the intensity of the pain. We laughed about it between contractions. Louise got out of the bath and lay on the bed for an internal exam and was told that she was fully dilated at 10cm. My unthinking comment of “all that ‘fuck-ing’ was worth it!” was met with laughter and “now that has to go on the blog!” Always a writer.

Hah! I’d completely forgotten that brilliant moment. We all erupted in laughter, and she took a moment to realise what she’d said. That was one of the funniest few seconds of my life.

When her waters had been broken (which was not an unpainful process) the midwife informed us that the waters had been acting as a doorstop for the cervix, pushing it open to the full 10cm, but now it was gone it had essentially bounced back to 8cm. Still a significant amount of progress in a short period of time, but a little disheartening.

Not too much longer and the contractions were getting really full on, causing her to writhe pretty much uncontrollably and scream out “oww!”. Only about 20 minutes later she was up to 9cm and starting to feel the urge to push. At times when the pain became overwhelming she began to panic slightly, but was able to bring herself back and refocus. Soothing words from CJ and a kind but firm reminder from the midwife helper her focus. At one stage she asked for an epidural but we all politely ignored her and changed the subject.

As mentioned yesterday, I wasn’t actually asking for an epidural, but everyone thought I was – I wanted to know it was too late to have one if I’d asked. That “too late” moment would mean I was going to successfully have a natural birth. Which, incidentally, I so did.

Born at 7.58pm

Song playing was “Opportunity” by pete murray, “Nothing else matters” by Metallica, and then “Nothing is beyond you” by amy grant.

Having music playing was a nice distraction at times, so I do recommend it.

She said at exactly 8 minutes after giving birth, “It’s not too soon: I do want another child.”

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Here’s another picture from the first two hours of Louisette’s life: