26May

Contractions in the afternoon (3pm) – went to CDG Etoile with Mum for shopping – contractions not painful, about 7 mins apart, later about 5 mins apart – fairly regular till about 8pm, then v. irregular. Woke up 3 times to pee (as usual) – apparently false labour.

27 May

More painful contractions, starting about 8am, soon after Ali left for work. Mum kept track of them (timing).

Around lunchtime they were very strong and I had to get up and walk during lunch with each contraction (about 5 minutes apart, lasting 80 seconds).

Around 2pm Mum called Ali (hard labour now). I had to lie down. Francine suggested a warm bath, which helped a lot. Francine arrived around 2.30pm and said I was 2cm dilated. Ali arrived around 3pm and coached relaxation (this was great – definitely worth the practice). These contractions were painful. Francine stayed until 4.30pm and I was 3cm dilated when she left. I had another bath, and lost my mucous plug. Francine had said we should leave for the Clinique around 7pm (unless my waters broke) and that she expected the baby to arrive before midnight. Contractions very painful, double peaks. I was feeling nauseous, and felt it wasn’t fair not to have breaks.

At 5.40pm my waters broke and the contractions were very painful. We left for the Clinique immediately, Ali and Mum in front, me in the back on hands and knees. (Ali was parked in, of course.) The traffic was terrible – Paris rush hour on a Friday, at the end of the month. Stuck in solid traffic on the Voie George Pompidou (on the banks of the Seine).

My contractions definitely felt like pushing now – very, very painful. I tell Ali and mum the baby is coming – they say hang in there – I know the baby is coming, so I take off my knickers and kneel on Ali’s towelling dressing gown. I feel the head crown and pull back, next contraction he crowns and stays there, and the next contraction he is born! I check the umbilical cord isn’t strangling him and unhook it from behind his neck. I open up my kimono and hold him to my breast. He started crying as soon as he arrived. His features are perfect and he is beautiful, even all covered in white waxy stuff. I am exhausted and shaking.

Mum suggests Ali pull over – we have at last left a tunnel and there is miraculously a pavement to pull over onto, just before the Pont au Change. Ali stopped an off-duty ambulance – they were reluctant to help until they realised there was actually a baby in the car. Then Philippe, an off-duty pompier (fireman – also trained in rescue work), on a motorbike, stopped (the captain, no less). He was wonderful, spoke some English, wiped my brow, gave me water to drink offered me oxygen (which I refused), asked Mum to check that I hadn’t bled too much, reassured us that both mum and baby were fine.

About half an hour later, after battling through the traffic, even with sirens blaring, the ambulance arrives with a doctor. They are really sweet. The doctor clamps the cord and invites Ali to cut it – almost insists – but Ali says ‘Non’! So he cut it and gave the baby to mum to hold while they took me our of the car and into the ambulance and put me on a drip. Sadly this meant that I just missed the early breast-feeding window and he was trying to feed from mum.

The ambulance men (probably the doctor, who speaks some English) tell me he was born on the banks of the Seine, and say they wonder if his life will be as dramatic (and romantic) as his birth. They really enjoyed the whole experience!

Ali saw our baby drop onto the back seat and came to look at him once we had stopped. He commented on how long his nails were, and we both remarked that he had Ali’s hands. His features were just the same then as they are now (five and a half days old). The placenta was born easily in the ambulance. Francine met me and Ferrier outside the Clinique. She checked and weighed him, and gave me a few stitches – said it was just a superficial tear. It’s a pity she missed the birth, as she would really have enjoyed it – no complications and a gorgeous baby!