Lyra - Meet Mummy...

At 7pm on 17th November my sister arrived back in the UK after a few months in Indonesia. I was delighted to see her and she found my 39 week pregnant belly hilarious - I was just glad that I hadn't given birth before she arrived home, she'd never have forgiven me. We went out for dinner and at about 11pm she headed back to Brighton to catch up on some much needed sleep. Delighted to see my sister but fed up with being pregnant I updated my Facebook status to:

Auntie Bryony is home, please come out to meet us now Lyra!

I headed to bed but after a couple of hours sleep I became plagued by the all too familiar Braxton Hicks which had been keeping me awake for nights on end. I got up for a couple of hours and sent some emails, and tied up a few loose ends at work that I'd not been able to sort out that day before heading to the airport.

I was about to head back to bed at about 4am when my husband Tom got up to take an antihistamine. While he was up I popped to the loo and found that I'd had my show - I then realised that these Braxton Hicks were stronger and more regular than usual and told Tom, very excitedly, that I thought I might be having contractions. We decided to try putting the birth pool up as it had arrived that day and we'd need to do a test run at some point anyway even if this wasn?t the real thing. By the time the pool was up I was fairly sure that this was indeed the real thing ? we were finally going to meet our baby! I settled down with Bridget Jones diary on the DVD player, soft lighting and some lavender oil burning.

By the time I was about halfway through the film, we decided to give our midwife Melanie a call. We thought we were being very premature but we knew she was likely to have appointments far and wide that morning and we knew she'd rather come 5 minutes down the road and check up on me before heading out rather than needing to traipse half way across London to find me 2cm dilated later in the morning.

Melanie arrived at 7.15am - at this point I was "beautifully relaxed and bouncing on my birth ball" according to her notes. I remember having quite a giggle with her when she arrived and feeling terrible about dragging her out so early on such a cold winter's morning.

I had intended for my sister to be present at Lyra?s birth but didn't want to call her too early as I knew she?d be exhausted and jet-lagged - Melanie agreed to examine me so we could decide when might be a good time to call Bryony, we assumed I'd be about 2cm and that Bryony could join us after a lie in. Wrong! I was 10cm and ready to push. I don?t know quite how that happened - I thought there was meant to be quite a lot of pain involved but I'd been lucky so far.

Melanie suggested I got into the pool for a while, we knew this would slow things down a bit and hopefully give my other midwife, Rachel, time to arrive from Dorking. The pool was lovely and relaxing. I remember vividly feeling exhausted at this point. My contractions were very short but the water was so warm - I remember asking if I could go to sleep. Melanie told me matter of factly I could sleep as long as I liked later but I had a little bit more work to do now! I can also remember reassuring Tom that although it was hard work, it didn't hurt at all and that he really didn't need to worry about me?

Once Rachel had arrived, I got out of the pool to go to the loo. Melanie and Rachel agreed that a change of position to speed things back up again now we had a full complement of midwives wouldn't be a bad thing. On the loo the contractions that had been only 30seconds suddenly got a lot longer and on the second one Melanie rushed into the loo and told me to stop pushing and get off the toilet. I couldn?t! Melanie somehow managed to hold Lyra in and help me down onto my hands on knees whilst Rachel lined the floor. With the next big push Lyra was born. Melanie passed her through my legs and wrapped us up in a towel. Rachel took lots of pictures and I now have on film the moment I remember so vividly of looking into my little girls eyes for the first time. It was a beautiful moment (though you can clearly see a bottle of toilet duck in the background!)

Melanie and Rachel helped me to bed where Tom, Lyra and I had the most wonderful and special cuddle, getting to know each other as a family for an hour or so. Once the cord had stopped pulsating Tom cut it ? he said he felt like he was opening a supermarket! I went to deliver the placenta whilst Tom and Lyra had some special time and Tom had a good cry (I only found this out later. I never cry so Tom took the opportunity whilst I was out of the room and couldn?t accuse him of being soft!)

After helping me to get the hang of feeding Lyra in bed, Melanie and Rachel cleaned the house and then left us just as my sister arrived. I knew that both of my midwives were on the end of the phone if I needed them and that I would see Melanie again tomorrow. I couldn't believe how quick and easy the whole thing had been. Lyra was born at 9.11am so for most people at the office that morning, an email announcing Lyra?s arrival was the first one they read.

I'm not a very sentimental type so I was quite surprised by how overcome with love I was for both Lyra and Tom. Everything felt so right, my little girl had finally arrived and we had had the perfect beginning to our family life.