16/06/2026
7 years ago today, after a very long labour, my beautiful, wild and sweetly sensitive daughter came into this world 🤍
I realise I don't often talk about my first birth story - the birth that made me a Mumma. Perhaps because, even now, it still feels wrapped up in trauma.
My dreams of a magical home birth were shattered, replaced by bright hospital lights, failed spinals, interventions and moments I've somehow blocked from memory. But before all of that, there was so much magic.
Nearly 48 hours earlier we were up at the allotment, my partner, mum and I, hands in the earth, feet on the ground. Digging, harvesting a healthy crop of rainbow chard, eating raspberries straight from the bush in the late afternoon sunshine. Laughing, excited, blissfully at ease with the process.
Contractions got stronger and more frequent so we waddled downhill towards home, pausing every few moments to breathe through surge after surge.
At home, fairy lights glowed as I paced the hallway, leaning into doorframes as my body did the work it instinctively knew how. The birth pool brought such relief, and my first midwife arrived like some otherworldly goddess; an angel - quiet, respectful, hands off, simply holding the space with the occasional knowing wink that said, you've got this.
Then things became blurry.
Shift changes. Different faces. Labour slowing. The vision I'd held of birthing my baby en caul broken, quite literally, when my waters were manually broken without full consent.
The car journey to hospital. Vomiting outside the entrance. More changes in caregivers. Male consultants. Attempt after unsuccessful attempt to site a spinal. An episiotomy. Forceps.
And then...
She was placed on my chest.
The lights were so bright that the three of us hid beneath a towel. Time stood still.
I looked into her impossibly dark eyes as they met mine with such depth, peace and calm. In that moment, none of the rest mattered. I had met my daughter for the very first time.
It's a moment I'll treasure for the rest of my life.
Birth can be beautiful. Birth can be traumatic. Sometimes it can be both at once.
Happy 7th birthday to my darling girl. Thank you for making me a mother.
