You girls are all so fantastic! OK, I know I'm all hormonal and teary anyway, but I love this thread and all the support from various people here about doing things naturally.

I've had to put up a fight with my own DH not to get drugs (I told him it would kill the baby if I even had Pethidine... unlikely, but he's the one with the genetic disorder he doesn't want to research!), but luckily my midwives have been mostly fine with it - the one who wasn't has moved to the other side of the country!

For me, I was a "druggy baby" who couldn't open her eyes for more than a few seconds at a time for that first week... I'm not doing that to Liebling. I just couldn't drug up my baby, so that means not drugging up me. I don't dose myself up during pregnancy so I'm not going to during birth. Even after a week, the difference between my drugged-up birth and my sister's fairly drug-free birth still showed; it took a WEEK for me to shake off all those drugs! No way could I do that to my baby without good cause (though I'll be saying different on day 5 when I want a good night's sleep!).

Thanks for the cord blood info, Shannon - I always knew it was vaguely "better" to not cut the cord straight away, but it's good to know why!

I don't mind interventions if they're necessary: I do mind it if they're not. This is another reason I refuse to go to a hospital to give birth!

Also, having been told my bump is "too small" so my baby isn't growing, I think we should ban all silly people from being around pregnant women: we don't need the stress and the vast majority of babies are fine, no matter what the bump looks like!