Summary: James John Lawrence born at 17:43 weighing 7lbs 5.5ozs. Natural
birth at home.

Read on only if you want the details.....

29/03/1999
Gill started to feel pains down below at 1930. These felt like period pains
and were 10-15mins apart and lasted for 30s.

At 2130 Gill had her show.

We rang the midwife at 2200 to forewarn them.

I've blown up the balloons ready to hang outside for the midwife.

We are now going to bed (2230) to get as much sleep as possible before the
strong contractions start.

It looks like we might avoid having an April fool baby!

30/03/1999
Contractions continued throughout the night.
We put the Tens machine on at about 0330. Gill managed to get a bit of
sleep around 0530.

We rang the midwives at 0800.
Marie came round at 0945 (she spotted the balloons).
She is examining Gill for dilatation of the cervix. The blood pressure was
fine. The baby's heart is fine.

I've put the video battery on charge!

Gill is at 2cm which means that she is still effacing.

Well its all happened now. Its 18:44 and James John Lawrence was born at
17:43. I didn't get a chance to write any commentary as I was back rubbing
every contraction. Gill was brilliant, she never lost focus on her
breathing and didn't require any pain relief and only went to 60 on the
Tens Machine (out of 100 or so).

The Tens machine was really good. Gill pressing the boost button meant that
myself and Terry (Gill's mum) sprang into action, me backrubbing and Terry
blowing Gills face with the fan. Terry was very good at giving Gill the
sort of advice only a mother of four can (plus making cups of tea and ham
rolls).

Its now 19:54 and James has had his first feed, he managed about 20mins. He
is very active, grimacing and squirming plus occasional sneezes.

Gill was 4-5cm at 14:00 and 80% effaced. After this the contractions got
stronger and closer and she zipped through so fast that there was no
discernible transition between stage 1 and 2. There was a series of
contractions which joined end to end and then Gill said she could sit no
longer as the baby's head was coming.
Then the midwife had to move fast. I was caught between going for the video
camera and steadying Gills weight but I just didn't have time to video but
I saw his head pop through and look up at the ceiling (text book
positioning). I've got him on video 3mins after being born having a go at a
breast.

Not once did Gill push or panic she just breathed through everything. She
was simply brilliant. She did some real good huffing and puffing.

We didn't play the birthing tape. The most effective actions were getting
Gill to concentrating on her breathing and having her lower back rubbed. We
established the best position after about 1hr of experimenting. This was
sitting astride a chair the normal way around with another chair in front
piled with cushions and bean bag. We stayed in this position for 4 hrs
until the baby was born.

I cut the cord about 10-15mins after James was born.
The midwife delivered the placenta no problem but I have to say it didn't
look very tasty so we declined the opportunity to nibble it.

We are very lucky. We made all the right preparations but we all know that
is no guarantee by a long way. As one of the NCT Ante-natal class said "one
of us had to have an easy time of it".

Gill, Alan and James.