I had a very long pre labour/labour of 72 hours, no drugs other than gas, didn't get to the hospital till I was 8cm, nothing to eat and no sleep for those three days and it took me 2 hours to push her out. For the first few hours after she was born I was on a bit of a high, got up, had a shower went up to our room and had some McDonalds (ew - although I only ate about half of it!) had family and two close friends visit...and that's when it caught up to me physically. I have NEVER been that tired in my whole life. But I found I couldn't sleep because I was worried about what would happen if DD woke up while I was sleeping - just that first time mum stuff.

By the next day I was sooooooooo sore - just muscular soreness and very stiff from bracing against the contractions for all those hours. That passed after a day or two.

By the third day I had a the baby blues - brought on mainly by feeding issues.

Emotionally I found the longer I stayed in hospital with midwives over my shoulder watching my every move the more my confidence was eaten away - apart from one midwife who spent two days with me helping me gain some confidence in my ability to feed my baby and to this day I credit her for being about 70% of the reason I kept at it and fed my daughter till she was 16 months old. I hope to run into her again this time so I can thank her.

This time I plan to come home as soon as baby and I are able to because once I got home the emotional side of things improved greatly.