Now the dust has settled a little, here's a more detailed write up on our birth experience as promised. As a first birth we were expecting a long labour. We got a little more than we bargained for.

We knew things were starting to happen on Monday when Annie started to feel painful contractions. A restless monday night and more of the same on tuesday, pretty much no sleep for Annie as contractions were waking her up every 10 minutes. Wednesday Malc decided to work from home in the morning, anticipating things would get going in the afternoon. Nada. Another night of no sleep followed, but finally around 3am thursday morning the contractions started to get closer together. 5.30am we decided to call our midwife Amber as instructed as contractions are 5 mins apart. We expected to
wake her but she was already attending another home birth as backup. "I'll be there in 20 minutes!".

Amber turned up and set up all her kit, most of the gear that you would find in a hospital birthing unit lives in the back of her car. We already had the pool pumped up and ready, so it was all system go. We awaited the classic signs of progress, contractions lengthening and getting closer, and then ... nothing. At lunchtime, Amber told us she was going home for lunch (she lives in the next street) and would return in a couple of hours if she didn't hear from us earlier.

On her return, things were still the same. Another few hours and Amber headed home again for tea.

At that point, Annie inexplicably went to sleep for half an hour. On waking up, she moved into a pattern 1 minute contractions with five minutes sleep in between. Annie was exhausted after 3 nights without sleep. At around 11pm we called Amber to ask her to come and check out that baby was still ok. She came round and discussed her options. We decided she should do an examination to check progress before making any decisions, as we had no idea whether we were 10% or 90% of the way there.

Great news, we were 80% there. That seemed to give Annie the extra boost of energy required. We hurriedly filled the pool, and Annie clambered in as the contractions were getting pretty intense now, Annie was pushing hard. Still the contractions were 5 minutes apart, Amber said "we'll throw that textbook out the window". Although we hadn't planned to have a water birth, once Annie was in the water there was no getting her out. The contractions stayed 5 minutes apart, and Annie was convinced she was getting nowhere, but Amber informed her she could see baby's hair! A few more massive pushes, then "Malc, you need to come and catch your baby!". And on the last push, out she came. Malc brought her up to the surface and after a couple of splutters she started crying. She was passed to mum, and the two of them wrapped up in front of the fire. It was the most awesome experience of our lives, and we will never forget it.

We are also so grateful we chose to birth at home. If we had chosen a hospital birth, there is no way we would have continued without intervention for that long as the labour was not progressing in the textbook manner. In the end, that was the way it was supposed to be, and baby was born without complications.

We are now blissfully enjoying our first days as a family, Mum, Dad and Baby are all fine and healthy, even getting a semi-normal sleep pattern! Thanks to everyone for your wonderful messages, it really help to ease being so far away from everyone.

For the non-facebook users out there, here's some photos:

Take care all,

M, A & O

Introducing ...

The latest edition to the Locke family, Olive Alice Locke, born 3.33am 2 Nov 2007 NZ time at 7lb 13.

After a marathon 28 hour labour, she was born safe and well at home (as planned) in water. Dad managed to not faint and catch her bringing her to meet mum.

As you can imagine, the whole experience has been pretty shattering, but we are all resting now in absolute bliss. More photos and a more detailed write up to follow soon, but right now we need some sleep!

Malc, Annie and Olive.