Ten weeks or so ago, I posted my first message on mumsnet about wanting a home birth. Yesterday evening, very much to my surprise, I gave birth to a daughter in my front room - 16 days ahead of schedule. Thank heavens we picked up that birth pool early.
Naomi Savitri swam into the world at 20.38 on 24 June 2003, weighing six pounds 14. Labour: nasty, brutish, mercifully short right at the end - climbed in at 8 cm (writhing around after accelerating from 5cm really quickly), three pushes, out she came. Whole thing took less than 7 hours from waters breaking - at which point nothing else was happening - to baby emerging. Utterly amazing community midwives without whom, quite frankly, I would have gone to pieces and thence to hospital.
Thank you, thank you so much to everyone on mumsnet for all your support. I wouldn't have hired a pool without your suggestions, and everyone's been amazing over the past few weeks.
I am in a state of euphoric - and insomniac - disbelief, and I keep waiting for someone to wake me up. I don't think I'll ever look at my front room in the same light again.