In today's independent - how to raise your chances of "natural birth"

As for finding a woman I could be comfortable with when I'm 'naked and moaning' - er, sorry, that person does not exist!
Interesting article though, even if it does make me even more glad I had a section!

Mind you, the thought of someone seeing me 'huge, naked and bellowing' is IMo the sort of thing that should only happen in particuarly terrible nightmares - the kind where you wake up all sweaty and profoundly glad it isn't true

She wrote the article for Junior mag recently on circumcision, and prior to that 'spoke' to mumsnetters about it. She gave me a lot of good advice & points to consider, which I shared on a board & I think a lot of people found her info useful.

BTW, this is exactly the sort of thing I meant when I posted some advice recently on the journalism thread. An unusual personal story is often of interest, particularly if it is topical.
There's a new report out about the benefit of Doulas, Davina McCall had her baby naturally with one to one support, so Lucy offers to write about her experience of using one to achieve a VBAC. Topical, interesting and totally appropriate for both the section (Parenting) and the publication - ie Guardian, rather lefty, organic and green and feminist = perfect story. Watch and learn all budding journos!

Not sure what you mean SueW? Are you suggesting she didn't have a baby or something? Actually I'm almost certain that Lucy Atkins is a sometime mumnsnetter who has posted before about VBAC and offered advice to others in her position on this very site - for free! So she's writing a book - she's a writer! That's what she does. And she's written the article for the same reason as she's writing the book, because she had a great experience and thinks it's a timely, topical and interesting subject.

Another vote for dhs, mine kept me laughing throughout long (but not difficult) labour and we felt we were on a journey together. Also he held dd first (which I wanted) and was awestruck by how beautiful she was. He bonded immediately.

Here, here. My dh amazed me (and I think himself) in the delivery room. He even pushed towards the end, though he still won't tell me what he thought he was pushing.
All through the pregnancy I had told him that it didn't matter about cutting the cord etc. I just wanted him there to be the first to see our baby. In the end he did cut the cord and he did look as the baby came out (not that in a waterbirth there is much to see) but I wouldn't have minded if he didn't.
What I think really helped was that he came to every single antenatal appointment with me, so he knew the midwife as well as I did. During labour the midwife let my husband support me and just sat in a corner observing.
When I was bleeding quite badly afterwards, they put the focus on it being "dad's turn to have a cuddle" while they sorted me out, so I didn't even know they were worried about me until I read my notes.
Afterwards we were so proud of each other.

Well, I can't imagine either of my labours without dh - he was a real star in both of them, knowing when to shut up, and when to give encouragement etc. Actually, in ds' birth, he was fascinated by the machines (he's an engineer) and the midwives were killing themselves laughing as he cheered the contraction monitor up to 90, going 'higher higher higher' - forgetting of course that the higher it got, the more it hurt for me!!! But actually it did take my mind off it a bit. And then when I really decided I wanted an epidural, and the mw was saying 'you don't need one' when he realised I really did want one at that stage he was able to say firmly that I did really want one.

In dd's homebirth, he was great, just running round getting the mw's stuff, not getting in the way, but he was there if I needed him. for Dads!

pupuce - if you contact me through the board, I'll send you some more technical information about who we are, and what we do, including funders, staff, projects etc. The main website is for dads, but if you click on "FatherWork", you'll find an additional website for professionals. If you're really interested, then subscribe to our monthly email.

hi pupuce, i notice you have been posting more frequently recently - welcome back!

Hi Bekki, just a quick one - doulas aren't only for well off women - I'm hoping to use one for my second in November and Pupuce has very kindly put me in touch with several who have agreed to do a bartering deal instead of my paying them in cash. I met a lovely doula where we're living now who agreed to provide her service in exchange for dp building her a website but I'm not using her now - only because we're moving out of her area though. Anyway, it did seem when I was looking into it that many doulas want women to have their one to one support and are therefore prepared to negotiate on rates or accept a bartering deal. Just a thought! I'll let you know how I got on after the event!

I had an elective section so didn't need lots of support for a long period, but can't imagine my dh not being there to hold my hand and our baby. I just felt it was our baby - equally his as mine, so of course he should be there. In fact his presence to share the very moments of our son's life is as important (if not more) than his presence to support me. Also, nobody else will be as interested in your baby as your co-parent. He was nervous having seen his ex in labour, and found that quite upsetting, but was so relieved that the cs was much less traumatic than that.

Pupuce, I already gave you the website - why don't you go and have a look?

It's here if you would like a clickable link.

It's like mumsnet for dads but with extras - like they do research and campaigning. They have some extremely useful articles, a publication which summarises 20 years of research on fatherhood, etc.

Personally I think anyone involved in dealing with families should give the site a good look over, particularly since a lot of those people are women and do not therefore have a male perspective on life!

Also, fathersdirect has launched 'Dad' - a glossy magazine aimed at Dads (surprise, surprise!). The first edition was distributed free through some antenatal clinics or you can buy a copy from the site; the second should be available soon in shops.

I found Tom's talk at the Antenatal Education conference interesting and amusing.

Yeah - I'm from Fathers Direct - Im the networks manager - developing internatinal, national and regional networks of practitioners, researchers and policy workers.

Sue - you saw my talk at that did you? Hope you liked it - I had fun with it, that's for sure

Tom's from fathersdirect.com. I think!!! Well, I'm 99.9% sure anyway. He did a very good speech at last year's Antenatal Education conference and I've watched my words ever since