About Jasmine's birth part 1: leaking wee

Jazzie was born at 4.15pm on 27th April 2006 at the Whittington Hospital in Archway, North London. She was born by emergency caesarian at 31 weeks + 1 day, making her just under 9 weeks premature.

It was a bloody shock I can tell you.

I had a midwife's appointment that morning, which was the most enormous piece of luck, as I can't bear to think what would have happened if I hadn't had to go to the hospital that day.

What was supposed to happen that day was I get to work after my appointment in time for my boss to take me and my team out for lunch. Our treat was very overdue, by about 3 postponements over 4 months. Pregnancy still felt like shit but I was at last keeping food down. And even though it was only lunch, that meant taking it easy and no work for a couple of hours. There was no way in hell I was going to miss it.

At that time, there was obviously a lot about pregnancy that I didn't know - like what a contraction or breaking my waters felt like. As it turns out, both had happened.

In retrospect I think my waters had actually broken 4 days before Jazzie was born. But at the time I didn't realise, mainly because there wasn't a helluva lot of 'water' - just a lot of damp, slightly smelly wetness in my pants that I kept very quiet about. I mean eugh. Like I'm going to tell anyone I wet myself? No sirree. My boyfried has seen me burp, fart, shave my legs, clean my belly button, floss my teeth, wax my lip, vomit just about everywhere, cry messily in public, have a speculum examination (three times) and pass a pregnancy. This was the one last bastion of mystery (i.e. dignity) I had left, and I was clinging onto it. The fact that he's a doctor was immaterial. Rather than confess my worries to my nearest and dearest, I self-diagnosed instead. My pregnancy book (the aptly titled Pregnancy Sucks) told me that incontinence wasn't uncommon at this stage of pregnancy, and that only about 5 million pelvic floor exercises a day would probably cure it.

It wasn't the best news. It didn't help that I had been grumpy for pretty much the whole of the previous day, moaning to anyone who care to listen - I had vomited in the evening for the first time in ages and had gone to bed feeling vaguely nauseous and with an uncomfortably tight tummy. I hadn't woken up feeling much better and sensed an ominous black cloud threatening to ruin my day.

But, true to form, I assumed I was mentally exaggerating how bad I felt, dutifully clenched and released my pelvic floor 10 times, focused on getting to my lunch and set off for the hospital.