h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*giggles* I go away for a couple of months because real life takes over and you lot are having a ball! Typical! LOL

I had progressively bigger babies..

6lb 8oz 6lb 12oz and 7lb 2oz.... I'm not exactly petite either so they were a lot smaller than I imagined they would be LOL

Chocolate is a necessity for all mothers, mums to be and even ladies thinking about becoming mums... ok I admit it... my philosophy is you can never have too much chocolate LOL

I don't feel broody, yet (mini-munchkin is only 6 weeks old on Wednesday coming) but I wanted to answer that a big baby doesn't mean a bad birth.

Mini-Munchkin weighed in at 9lbs 9oz. (Phew!) I'd been suffering pains since 10:30pm on Monday night, and went into hospital on Tuesday at 4pm, when the pains had become close together and regular. From the moment I went to bed on Monday night, she'd turned so I had a back-to-back labour, and I screamed through most of the night and most of Tuesday, but when we got to hospital and I was measured, I was already 5cm open. From then until birth was 7 hours.

To cut a long story short (my birth story took several pages of A4!) I was able to have a hospital waterbirth. The dilation was textbook timing (one cm per hour) and although the Stage 2 was two hours, that was because the silly girl was turning her head the wrong way, making the contractions slow, and not because of her size. I ended up with a minor tear, no stitches, and had only used gas-and-air for painrelief!

OK, so I'm a show-off! Sorry if I made anyone squirm with my details!

x x Driver