My oldest daughter.

Yesterday, the 31st October, marked Elisabeth's 7th birthday. This time last year, I promised to write her birth story, all of the kids birth stories actually and i have never done it! So here goes....

After Lachlan was born we were desperate to start trying again, we figured that carrying a baby around whilst pregnant was going to be a hell of a lot easier then carrying around a toddler. So as soon as I got my period back about 8 weeks after his birth, we started trying again. One month passed and when we got a negative we weren't upset, it was then that we wondered whether we should really even be trying! But low and behold, the following month, when we weren't trying, I was up the duff. LOL!

I had the suture inserted at 16 weeks, a little later this time as I had been sick with a virus for a while and we didn't want to risk the general whilst I had lung issues. When I was 4 months pregnant and with both sets of parents away, Paul was raced to emergency for back surgery. I remember struggling with Lachlan who was 8 months old, and sitting in Paul's room waiting for him to come out of surgery. The risks were huge and we wondered if he was going to be able to walk again. After a couple of very long hours, he came out and later that night he was given the all clear and we were told that no permanent damage was there. Phew!

I kept myself busy for the entire pregnancy, and amazingly enough only needed 2 overnight stays for prem labour. We had found out the sex of this one, but only because it was blatantly obvious on the scan and I wanted to be assured that our guess was correct.After having 3 boys, we were really at a loss for a girls name so one night whilst sitting at the dinner table with TJ, who was 8 at the time, we asked him what he would name the baby if he were to have a little sister. Straight away he said "Elisabeth", so that is how her name came about.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, I was having issues with her pushing right down on the suture in my cervix, the pain was excruciating and I was booked in for the removal at 36 weeks.

We fronted to the hospital and again I was extremely nervous, since Isaac, I had never gone into the whole birth thing with excitement, I just wanted to hear my babies scream and then I would breathe a sigh of relief.

I dilated instantly to 6 cm once the suture was removed and an hour and 49 minutes later after lots of pushing as she kept retracting, our little girl entered the world.

She was tiny, slippery, blue and not breathing.

My wonderful OB, my midwife and the cord blood lady were frantically trying to stimulate her for a couple of minutes and still nothing. My heart just broke. She was whisked away and Paul just held me.

After a couple of minutes that seemed like an eternity, we heard the faintest gurgle of a little cry.

It was then that Paul and I both started to cry, she was safe, she was breathing, she was going to be ok. She required some oxygen whilst we had cuddles and after about 10 minutes was put in a humidicrib for a couple of hours to regulate her temp and some more oxygen. Once I was all cleaned up and we were ready to go upstairs to our room, she was handed to us and we were able to go on as if she was a normal full termer.

Her labour was great, again, I was able to do it completely drug free and I was proud of myself for that, the feeling of being so in control of your body is amazing and it is for this reason that I would do birth 1000 times over before I did pregnancy! LOL!

So here we are, 7 years on and she has grown into a fine young lady, not much has changed since last year, she still has attitude but I think that is just the age?

Someone assure me that that is correct?