About Jasmine's birth part 2: pain

So where was I - oh yes, here, thinking I had somehow become mildly incontinent, feeling quite grumpy but trying to be good-humoured, and setting off for the hospital for my midwife's appointment.

Oh man, that journey was a struggle. I say 'journey' like it's some kind of epic distance but in fact it's more like a trip, or a skip to the hospital - out the house, up a short hill to the tube, over the railway bridge to the other side of the platform, short tube ride, off at Archway, up a bigger hill to the hospital and you're there. Total journey time ca. 30 mins.

Only no sooner had I left the house than my back started playing up pretty badly. I was conscious that I must have been shuffling along quite slowly, and did that old man thing by hobbling over and putting my hand on my back. I'm not sure it gave me the oomph to get me up the hill but I felt silly and self-conscious and thought that it would give passers-by more of an idea why a perfectly healthy-looking young-ish pregnant lady couldn't outpace a snail.

The warning signs still didn't kick in though. I'm pretty used to back pain after a car accident about 10 years ago left me with a chronic injury that means my back aches at least once a week when I'm not pregnant. I always knew that carrying a big bump around could make my back hurt a lot, so I just assumed that it was rotten luck for my back to flare up and for me to be mildly incontinent in the same week, chalked it up to the third trimester and struggled womanfully on.

By the time I got to the tube the pain had passed and I felt fine enough to sprint over the bridge to get the train that was on the far platform. But once I was off at Archway and on the big hill I felt like rubbish again. I was huffing and puffing and having to take really small steps, and my back was in agony. I'm not a great one for popping pills, normally content to suffer in silence, but I started to fantasise about paracetamol.