This time last year!!!

21st November had been etched in our brains since we first discovered I was pregnant on 17th March 2006. As soon as we saw the positive sign in the pregnancy test window we found a due date calculator online, and the daet that came out was 21st. This remained unchanged as I saw the midwife, and had my dating scan - and as we knew that Elizabeth had been conceived on 22nd February we knew it wouldn't change.

People say babies aren't born on their due date, and I fully expected to have to suffer a long period of waiting after 21st but Elizabeth had other ideas. She wasn't actually born until 23rd November (just!) but the marking of the anniversary of her birth starts today, a year on from when I went into labour.

On the one hand I can't believe that this date is here again, considering we waited so bloody long for it the first time around. From March last year November seemed an age away. Our lives have changed beyond recognition, and I'm facing facts at the moment that Elizabeth is no longer a baby. She is fiercely independent, and on the verge of walking. She's eating more and more, and her words and sounds are becoming more recognisable. She copies things more and more (like answering the phone, blowing her nose, washing her face, putting on her socks) and this morning tried to put a shoe on her self and was devastated that it didn't fit - we'll have to get her some proper shoes soon. She walked holding her V-Tech babywalker yesterday afternoon for the first time, not a tentative couple of steps but a very energetic couple of laps of the living room. She's been at it again this morning - still on tippy toes, and still a little tentative at first, but definately on the go.

What can I remember about this time last year? Absolutely nothing. I remember ringing husband at work at about 10.30am and speaking to the midwife because I thought my waters might have broken (they hadn't). I remember him coming home at normal time, and eating tea, and remember starting to time the contractions at around 5.30pm. I remember feeling oh-so-pleased with myself that I was coping so well, with my TENS machine strapped on, pressing the booster button for dear life when the contractions came. They were every five minutes so I thought the birth was very close. Little did I know. I remember trying to get everything packed into the bags for the hospital. The baby case (!) had been assembled for ages, but my things needed collecting together such was my limited supply of maternity clothes, and my need for contact lens stuff and make-up etc to go in at the last minute. I remember we were using her changing bag as the 'labour bag' so this had the TENS machine pouch, the Lucozade, flannel etc in. I remember on the midwives instruction getting into the car at around 9.30pm, and the agonizing journey to the hospital, with contractions outside Tesco, and outside Wrekin College. The pain in the car was unbearable - but I realised that there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, saying how painful it is doesn't make it any better. I was examined and was so gutted to hear I was only 1 cm dilated. I was told to go home, have a bath and get some sleep. Yes - as if. I took two co-codomol when I got in, and tried to get into bed. It was agony and there was no way I could. I tried and tried - I remember kneeling on the bedroom floor - to cope with the pain, then rang the midwife back and begged to be allowed to come back. She told me to have a bath which I did against my better judgement, and took the TENS machine off at that point. I don't think I put it on again. In the early hours of the morning we set off to the hospital again. I remember standing in the car park in the dark while husband got a parking ticket, and then slowly and gingerly making my way to the back entrance. Being met by my community midwife, being shown to a room, a small room. The heating was broken, and the heater was being used by someone about to give birth. I remember the position of the bed, in the middle of the narrow long room. I remember (I think) taking my day clothes off and putting on my grey t-shirt. I remember being examined and being told I was 3 cm. That, apparently, was when 'established labour' began, but I don't count it from then, because it bloody hurt a lot before that!