First Born

The universe is having a cosmic joke at my expense, I have the flu, on top of residual catarrh from a two-week old cold that I have still yet to kick. I'm not up to posting anything that requires thought, so I've 'borrowed' this from Sticky Feathers. When I responded to her post, I failed to say, crikey 7 weeks early. What the chuff!

Questions About Your First Born.

1. were you married at the time? yes.

2. what were your reactions? equal parts excited and terrified - oh and I somehow didn't believe that the pregnancy would 'take'. It's a good thing a pregnancy is 9 months long as that's precisely how long it took me to get my head round the idea of being a Mum.

3. how old were you? 31

4. how did you find out you were pregnant? I came back from holiday and thought, hmm, wait a minute, it's been more than 4 weeks since I was last flying the red flag, maybe I should take a test. I took one, it was negative. Many days and tests later I finally got a faint pink line (and promptly googled 'faint pink line'), then I took a digital test, and crikey moses it said 'pregnant'.

5. who did you tell first? I called LK, he was at a friends house watching the Raiders. I couldn't wait for him to come home, so I called him on the phone and said 'I'm pregnant' he said 'that fast? What happened to all the practice we were supposed to get'. Then when he finally came home he made me re-test (test #6).

6. did you want to find out the sex? No. About 75% of friends told me they thought I was carrying a girl by the shape of my belly, and they were right. I bought a girl's onesie (babygro) at Baby Gap 2 weeks before delivery on a hunch.

7. did you deliver early or late? 2 days late - on my late Grandad's birthday, his first great grandchild.

8. did you have morning sickness? Not really, it just felt a bit like motion sickness, although I did spectacularly projectile vomit on Christmas Day. White robe, projectile vomit of coffee. LK could not stop laughing for the next hour. There was no warning, I was midway through opening presents and midway through a sentence and suddenly, BLEURGH.

9. what did you crave? Sweet and tart fruit; cherries, strawberries. It was the wrong time of year. I spent a fortune on cherries imported from Chile.

10. who irritated you the most? People who promised not to let the cat out of the bag when I told them I was pregnant. I had not intended to spill the beans so early, but my brother was visiting from England and would have rumbled why I wasn't drinking. I wasn't prepared to be pregnant and not ready for people to know before I was comfortable with the idea. Plus my Mum had a late miscarriage before me and I was terrified of the same thing happening.

11. what was your first child's sex? Girl

12. how many pounds did you gain throughout the pregnancy? Just less than 28lbs, (2 stone) and no stretch-marks, which I only realised about 2 weeks after giving birth, and then I was in the shower going, 'well I never'. I was convinced I was going to get stretch-marks as I'd already had them age 14 when I grew about a foot in one summer.

13. did you have any complications during your pregnancy? Nope, I was still playing league tennis when I was 7 months pregnant.

14. where did you give birth? Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital

15. how many hours were you in labor? All told about 24 hours, 12 hours of early labour interspersed with some truly awful contractions, then 2 hours of real balls to the wall contractions in the hospital when I went from 1cm dilated to 9cm in only 2 hours (the nurses quote was 'fast labours are good, but they can be very very painful'). No shit sherlock. I had an epidural which slowed things tremendously and then she was born at 9:20pm. Just in time for cocktails.

16. who drove you to the hospital? LK. It was a five minute drive and I had 3 sets of contractions en route.

17. who watched? LK. I declined the mirror.

18. was it natural or c-section? Natural.

19. did you take medicine to ease the pain? Naturally I had an epidural. As the docs I work for say 'they don't give out medals for bravery in labour and delivery'.

20. how much did your child weigh? 8lbs 10oz. Good Lord, she was only 2 days late people. I birthed a watermelon.

21. did your child have any complications? No, she was a whopper and was Apgar 9 and 9. We were very lucky.

22. what did you name him/her? Anna Rose. Anna for her maternal great grandma whose birthday was the day before, and her paternal great grandma was Erna (Danish Anna). Rose because despite being born in the US she is still an English Rose.

23. how old is your first born today? 2 1/4