Amy tells her birth story: 'My first birth to my son Owen was so straightforward: normal pregnancy, only 2 days overdue, had a 24-hour labour though. 6am the contractions started then gave birth 7.10 am the following day.
I went in to hospital at 11 pm with really bad contractions and sat in the bath for about an hour. My partner went home because they said I was nowhere near yet and that they would ring him when I was giving birth.
About 12pm I had pethidine and gas and air and I fell asleep, then all of a sudden at 6.55am I woke up in a puddle dying for a wee. I ran to the toilet and started pushing, the midwife said to me "are you pushing?!"
I was rushed down to the labour ward on the bed. My partner made it five minutes before the birth, luckily. Owen was born 6lbs 9 oz.
My second pregnancy though was completely different. My midwife noticed that the baby had stoped growing inside me so I had to go to the hospital 3 times a week, one for a scan and 2 for the heart monitor, and she still hadn't grown.
Me and my partner were sat in the sideroom waiting for the doctor. She said, "Unfortunately the baby hasn't grown any more and you are at 36 weeks now so I will arrange a c-section as we don't want the baby to be harmed."
She was breech. "Tomorrow, ok?"
I was shocked and so scared. The next day we went to the labour ward . At 10am they called me through. We went to the theatre. The midwife said just sit here on the bed and wait, I'll be back in a minute.
As soon as she went out the door I burst in to tears. The thought of beeing awake scared me to death. When she came back she was trying to reassure me as we walked through the theatre doors.
"Are you not pleased to see me?" I heard to my left. It was the aneasthetist. "I'm just scared," I said.
The staff were so good and reassuring to me. I had a spinal block and it is the weirdest feeling I have ever felt; one minute you can lift your legs then all of a sudden you can't.
The feeling of the operation was weird as well: you can feel all the moving around in your stomach. Then at 11.44am, Bethany was born : 3lbs 13 and a half oz.
When I saw her I was gobsmacked - she was so tiny. Luckily Bethany didn't need any special care. She was perfectly healthy and has been gaining weight ever since.
I was in hospital for a week so they could see she was putting on weight. Bethany took a day to get used to feeding properly. I had to express some milk into a syringe a few times because she was having trouble.
She was feeding every hour to begin with. Now she's every 3 hours. Because she's always hungry, I top her up with formula milk after she has fed off me.
We didn't have clothes to fit her but my dad and his girlfriend came to the rescue and found some tiny baby clothes from Next and Pampers midi nappies from Mothercare.
Bethany slept all the time for 3 weeks, now she's awake for longer: usually in the morning for a few hours then asleep in the afternoon and awake at 5-ish 'til bed at 9-10ish.
She is just like a average-size baby but smaller. She is 6 weeks old now and weighs 7 lbs. She hasn't had any problems so far, just the right hip a bit clicky, but that runs in the family.
I have been mostly carrying her in a sling because she's so small. That's all there is that's a bit different - really she's just like an average baby, just smaller.'
