It is Nathan's 10th birthday today. I can't believe he is ten. Its odd, because I'm feeling rather reflective. I am remembering the whole experience - last night ten years ago, i was in pain, alone and afraid. He wasn't supposed to be coming yet. Having not experienced labour with Laura, I didn't know what was going on. at 4.30am I rang my mum. She came around. I rang Nathan's dad at 5am. He was on night shift, and because his shift finished in an hour, decided to finish his shift. (Never mind that I had been in pain that was getting increasingly worse all night!!! and that he had an hour to travel home, and then another half hour to get to the hospital!!) I was in denial the whole night, and then the trip to the hospital - even though the pain was intense, and not going away. It took a while for us to walk from the carpark to the hospital - with me apologising all the way! When we got into the birthing suite, I was examined and was in labour, and had started to dilate. They decided to give me a shot of pethadine to see if it would bring things to a halt. Yeah right! exH fell asleep, and all I wanted to do was get up and walk around - which I didn't because I had the monitor on. 4hours later, they examine me again, and I have continued to dilate. I had expressed that there was a particular area on my belly that was very sore. The head OB comes in and explains that because labour hadn't stopped, and that I had an area that was tender, they were concerned that the placenta had started to come away - and that in 20% of cases, bleeding stayed internal... My head was spinning. Within minutes of him examining me, I was being prep for the c-section. Having a spinal block while having contractions is highly unpleasent (my hat goes off to all of you that have had epidurals while in labour!!) Then Nathan was born. The whole thing is so vague in my memory from here on in. His apgar scores were good to begin with, but while I was in recovery, and he was being taken to special care nursery he went into respirotary distress. By the time I was wheeled to my room, he was in a humdicrib on oxygen.... not that I saw him. The midwife looking after me, was too busy to wheel my bed to the special care nursery. I held onto a poloroid photo of him for ten hours. I missed out on Laura meeting her baby brother for the first time. His blood sugar levels started to drop, and they wanted to give him formula via the nasal gastro tube that had been put in. I said I want to breast feed!! I had to argue with the special care nurse, so they allowed me to express some colostrum off, and i demanded it be added to the formula. whether that happened or not is anyone's guess because I still hadn't seen him! or even had a cuddle. At ten o'clock that night - ten hours after he was born, I finally got to hold my son for the first time, and give him a feed.

Its amazing that ten years on, that whole experience still hurts.

Sorry - just needed to get it out I guess.