36 weeks and 5 days – that’s how far I managed to get before our little girl decided to enter the world. At the beginning of that week, I was umming and ahhing about whether I should elect a Caesar birth, or go the natural route. Spen brought up a good point, that if I have a Caesar, then our baby wouldn’t get to choose his/her birthday. We had decided early on in my pregnancy not to find out what we were having.

At about 23:00 on the 25th June, Spen had his bags packed for a trip to Durban to watch a round 16 game of the Soccer world cup that was being hosted in SA. His alarm was set for 5am, and I was going to take him to the GauTrain station to catch a ride to the airport.

About half an hour after climbing in to bed, I got up again, feeling a little uncomfortable in my abdomen. I brushed it off as a somewhat painful Braxton hicks contraction, and hoped it would go away. But they didn’t, instead the contractions got a lot strong and much closer together, and my water broke. Not the huge gush you read about, but I knew what it was. So calmly, Spen said I think we should go to the hospital. With everything I had, I said, maybe we should wait. Not two minutes later, through gritted teeth, I grinned that we should probably head off.

We arrived at about 12:15 on the 26th June, and went straight up to the labour ward –  I said, hi, I think I’m in labour, I’m not sure though, and then a painful contraction hit and the nurse on duty said – yes, you’re in labour. Unknowingly, I asked for a private room, assuming I would be there until it was time to have my Caesar that I had decided I definitely wanted at this stage. She told me all of the rooms are private and promptly took me to the delivery room. Horrified I asked her, is this it? As in, is it time? Yip! And confirmed I’d be having a natural delivery – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrggghhhhh! K – I want an epidural – nuff said.

She called the gynae, and he arrived about 45 minutes later – with his dishevelled hair and sleepy eyes, asked me, what have we here? Hi, I’d like an epidural please. He just smiled (he must get that a lot). Spen was my rock throughout this whole process, remaining calm, and just being there for us. Except when it came to administering the epidural. The strong smeel of surgical spirits that the doctor used to clean my back (smelled more like ether to me) – hit Spens vegas nerve, and he turned as white as a ghost. Thank goodness the nurse spotted this because my hero wasn’t about to tell me he was going to pass out!

Without going into all the gory details – little baby James arrived at 3:57am – record time I know!!! Dr. Naylor held her in the air and said look what it is – having thought she was a he for some time, I said, Oh my God it’s a girl  She was perfect in every way, albeit slightly blue and because she had to be assisted by forceps, she was given a big shiner on her left eye, and a few scratches here and there.

She weighed 2,91kgs, was 48cms long with a head circumference of 34cm. She had an Apgar score of 7 then 9. Tiny baby James was immediately named – this is because Spen and I thought we still had a few weeks to decide this. Two days later, we both loved Alexis Olivia James. A beautiful name to match the beautiful little girl she is. And what’s more, Alexis chose her own birthday – the 26th June 2010 – 4 years later - to the day - that her daddy proposed to me on the 26th June 2006!