'First Christmas with our wee miracle baby' a fertility journey story

Janelle Shaw shares the story of her fertility journey. If you have battled with fertility, share your story with us. This year is our first Christmas with our wee miracle, Olive. My husband and I were married in Auckland in 2004 and took it for granted that we would start a family within a few years. We moved to Invercargill, where I am originally from, to prepare ourselves for parenthood by buying and doing up our first house and continuing our careers. After five years my husband and I were termed with 'unexplained fertility'. None of the invasive testing showed us what our problems were or how we could fix them. So we joined the increasing number of couples in the public systemwaiting list for IVF treatment. We were very open about our journey and our colleagues, friends and family offered us plenty of support. Time was needed to travel to Dunedin for scans and treatments on a regular basis. Our house began to look like some sort of science lab with the drugs around. All social engagements revolved around jab timings, which were set to my cellphone. Three years later, after two rounds of IVF and six embryo transfers we were reaching the end of our stamina and courage to continue. Luckily, I found the support I needed to continue in an online IVF group where others were in the same boat. Many of these people have remained close friends. From research provided by my online group we managed to convince our fertility specialists to try a different protocol on our third cycle. I remember the nurse telling me I should 'rattle as I walked' with the number of drugs I was taking. This was the first time we got a positive. The pregnancy was not without its own complications and the angel at the top of our Christmas tree represents our lost twin in utero. At about 30 weeks Olive was termed 'growth restricted' and had slowed her growing right down. We were assigned to the obstetricians who were hoping for me to reach 38 weeks and Olive to grow to 5 pounds (2.268kgs). We lasted until 37 weeks when pre-eclampsia signs set in. Out Olive came the day after New Years 2013, weighing 4 pounds 5 ounces (1.956). I have put together an album for Olive sharing the journey we took to get her here with the inscription 'Never forget how wanted and loved you are, love Mummy and Daddy'. In the album are doctor's letters, ovary scans, blessed stones from well-meaning aunties, along with the scans of her and her twin My online group started up a 'lucky sock' trend. During the egg extraction operation each of us chose a pair of socks to wear. For Olive's first Christmas I have made her her own Santa sock with her initials 'OS' sewn on the top from the lucky socks worn at her egg extraction and the following successful egg transfer. Finally we have our first Christmas as a family. Sod the expensive Christmas presents and blow the scurrying around for weeks beforehand that seems to go with the big day. This year we have been blessed enough to discover the true meaning of Christmas. Article: 29th December 2013 www.stuff.co.nz

http://blogs.prideangel.com/post/2013/12/Scientists-have-created-spermbots-to-mechanize-sperm.aspx

Get your robot-proof tube socks ready, internet, because science has started to mechanize sperm. By combining your little swimmers with nanotechnology, scientists are hoping these “spermbots” could be used for fertilization – or, to deliver targeted doses of microscopic medicine. Researchers at the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden, Germany, decided sperm would be a great vessel for their project because of their tails (“flagellum”), which help them push through the barriers inside your body. They fit individual sperm cells inside tiny metal tubes – like, “only 50 microns” tiny – and then used magnetic fields to control the direction in which the sperm-knights travelled. These magnetically-controlled sperm-knights would be harmless to humans, don’t require any sort of power source (a major stumbling block in nanotech), and could deliver specific types of drugs to specific areas in the body. And, yeah, “sperm-knights.” They’re basically wearing tiny sperm suits-of-armor, so we’re running with it. Article: 27th December 2013 www.geekosystem.com/spermbots/ Looking for a sperm donor? register for free at www.prideangel.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP-Z7CRfGkQ&feature=player_embedded

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas 2013

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas for 2013. If you are just starting on the journey to becoming parents, we send our best wishes and wish you happiness for the future. For all of you who have become parents this year through Pride Angel, we send you our congratulations and just a reminder that we would love to hear your baby news and about your Pride Angel Journey. Click here to read about one couples personal journey through Pride Angel to becoming parents. Heres to a fantastic new year in 2014. The Pride Angel Team 25th December 2013

Australian donors split over past change in anonymity law

People who donated sperm and eggs before 1998 in one Australian state were able to remain anonymous, but potential new laws could have changed that. A recent study found those donors were split on the idea of possible contact from their donor children. Victoria, Australia introduced legislation to ban anonymous sperm and egg donation in 1998. "This means that donor-conceived children who were born after 1998 have a legal right to access information about their donor," Karin Hammarberg told Reuters Health by email. Hammarberg is a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne. It was also suggested that the government change the law to allow everyone conceived through sperm and egg donations to find information about their donor - including pre-1998 donors who thought they could stay anonymous, she said. But before deciding, the government wanted to ask people who donated in the past how they would feel about no longer being anonymous, and reached About half of the donors who rejected the recommendation were themselves willing to supply information to their donor offspring. They suggested the compromise of persuading donors to voluntarily release information to donor-conceived people. Many of them also thought parents should be encouraged to tell their children about their donor conception, and some thought it should be required. It's impossible to know if the views of these 42 donors represent the views of all Australians who donated eggs or sperm before 1998, the researchers noted. In August 2013, the Victorian government considered the survey findings. Although acknowledging the right of donor-conceived people to have information about their donors, the government decided identifying information should only be released with a donor's consent. "The balancing of donors' and donor-conceived people's rights requires utmost sensitivity. All over the world, increasing numbers of donor-conceived people are reaching adulthood. Of those who have been told that they were conceived with the help of a donor, some are likely to have a strong wish to know the identity of their donors," Hammarberg said. Read more ... Article: 23rd December 2013 www.reuters.com

Leading US cancer centers neglect the future fertility of patients

Some of the most advanced and best-resourced cancer centers in the country fail to notify patients of risks to their fertility or to direct patients to speak with fertility specialists, says a new study. In 2006, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine published guidelines regarding fertility preservation advising oncologists to be prepared to discuss risks to patients' fertility and make the proper referrals. In many treatment centers, these guidelines seem to have gone unheeded. "If it turns out that there were things that could have been potentially done to help them preserve their fertility and those weren't done or those weren't talked about, then it's very upsetting, understandably," says lead study author Marla Clayman, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Questions regarding fertility are frequently cited among adolescent and young adult cancer patients' frequent concerns in surveys, she adds.Researchers at Northwestern University phoned 39 comprehensive cancer centers to assess their fertility preservation resources. These centers are at the helm of experimental research. They are well-financed, often part of medical schools, or they are affiliated with other academic organizations. Phone survey participants were mainly staff affiliated with reproductive endocrinology, hematology or oncology divisions. Study results found that half of these centers had fertility preservation services available on site or referral systems in place. However, only about a quarter - 27 percent - of these centers employed fertility navigators or educators. Clayman says she understands an oncologist's principle goal is to save lives, but she believes cancer treatment centers ought to make an institutional commitment to providing fertility information to patients. "The vast majority of patients are not going to say, 'No, no. It's going to ruin my fertility don't give me treatment.' It's not an either or," she says. There are a number of options in fertility preservation: women can freeze embryos or cryopreserve their eggs. Other more experimental options such as freezing ovarian tissue have also surfaced in the last year. Men concerned about fertility have the option of sperm banking. Sometimes preserving a patient's fertility can delay treatment, but for certain slow-growing cancers, a few weeks difference may not be significant. These are the types of conversations patients should be having with clinicians, says Clayman. Doctors often take measures to make certain that patients are comfortable and to ensure fewer long-term side effects. "For many people the possibility of being infertile because of their cancer can result in psychological pain throughout a lifetime," says Clayman. Quality of life is important to cancer patients, particularly survivors. "You don't just want to have a life after cancer, you want to have the best life you can have after cancer, and we want that for everybody. The best that they can have - whether that means being in less pain, or whether that means having less psychological distress or whether that means being able to build a family that they want to build," says Clayman. Article: 20th December 2013 www.usnews.com

Leading US cancer centers neglect the future fertility of patients

Some of the most advanced and best-resourced cancer centers in the country fail to notify patients of risks to their fertility or to direct patients to speak with fertility specialists, says a new study. In 2006, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine published guidelines regarding fertility preservation advising oncologists to be prepared to discuss risks to patients' fertility and make the proper referrals. In many treatment centers, these guidelines seem to have gone unheeded. "If it turns out that there were things that could have been potentially done to help them preserve their fertility and those weren't done or those weren't talked about, then it's very upsetting, understandably," says lead study author Marla Clayman, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Questions regarding fertility are frequently cited among adolescent and young adult cancer patients' frequent concerns in surveys, she adds.Researchers at Northwestern University phoned 39 comprehensive cancer centers to assess their fertility preservation resources. These centers are at the helm of experimental research. They are well-financed, often part of medical schools, or they are affiliated with other academic organizations. Phone survey participants were mainly staff affiliated with reproductive endocrinology, hematology or oncology divisions. Study results found that half of these centers had fertility preservation services available on site or referral systems in place. However, only about a quarter - 27 percent - of these centers employed fertility navigators or educators. Clayman says she understands an oncologist's principle goal is to save lives, but she believes cancer treatment centers ought to make an institutional commitment to providing fertility information to patients. "The vast majority of patients are not going to say, 'No, no. It's going to ruin my fertility don't give me treatment.' It's not an either or," she says. There are a number of options in fertility preservation: women can freeze embryos or cryopreserve their eggs. Other more experimental options such as freezing ovarian tissue have also surfaced in the last year. Men concerned about fertility have the option of sperm banking. Sometimes preserving a patient's fertility can delay treatment, but for certain slow-growing cancers, a few weeks difference may not be significant. These are the types of conversations patients should be having with clinicians, says Clayman. Doctors often take measures to make certain that patients are comfortable and to ensure fewer long-term side effects. "For many people the possibility of being infertile because of their cancer can result in psychological pain throughout a lifetime," says Clayman. Quality of life is important to cancer patients, particularly survivors. "You don't just want to have a life after cancer, you want to have the best life you can have after cancer, and we want that for everybody. The best that they can have - whether that means being in less pain, or whether that means having less psychological distress or whether that means being able to build a family that they want to build," says Clayman. Article: 20th December 2013 www.usnews.com

Lesbian parents and sperm donors - Article in Family Law

Family Law (a leading monthly journal for UK family lawyers) has published an article by Natalie which discusses the landmark decision in same sex parenting case Re G and Re Z (2013) from earlier this year. You can read the article in full here. The case involved a lesbian couple (represented by the NGA team) who had conceived a son through an arrangement with a known donor. As civil partners, the two mothers benefited from the legal protection given by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 – they were the legal parents of the little boy, and named on his birth certificate. The genetic father applied to the court for ‘leave’ to make an application for contact rights, and the court had to decide whether – as a legal sperm donor – he should be allowed to apply against the wishes of the legal parents. The decision, published back in February, caused a storm at the time, covered by the main front page headline of the Daily Mail, as well as press statements from the HFEA and the British Fertility Society. Natalie’s article reflects on the significance of the decision and looks at why fertility law cases are causing such a challenge for the family courts. You can read more about known donor disputes on NatalieGambleAssociates website, or find out more about their family disputes services. Article: 13th December www.nataliegambleassociates.com Read more about Fertility Law at www.prideangel.com

My decision to freeze my eggs being single and age 40

It is a month after my 40th birthday and I have come to Valencia on a job, staying on for the appointment at IVI, the local branch of the Spanish fertility facility, known to insiders as miracle clinics. It has taken almost two years of sleeplessness to make this decision, to face the truth of my situation. While friends' lives have moved forward in unison and in neatly defined chapters – marriage, first home, first child, second home, second child – I have been unable to move forward with them. Alone at night, the thick walls of denial crumble down and I am paralysed with shock. It is as if I have crash-landed into my own future to find myself 40, single and childless. The sound of absence is deafening: like white noise, a droning, gentle at first, then louder like the song of the cicadas as dusk turns into darkness. "How did I get here?" I ask myself over and over. "How did I get left behind?" In my 20s and early 30s, I felt few maternal urges. The idea of breastfeeding, like a sow suckling a piglet, made me nauseous. Prams triggered low-grade, non-specific anxiety: they were vehicles of entrapment. The concept of a creature growing inside me was terrifying. But not as terrifying as the stagnating, desexualising effect that I feared nursing a baby would have on my relationships and my life. And so the years passed. But when, at 39, I split up with my boyfriend (his betrayal), the sadness hit hard. I mourned him, but the grief was magnified by a new loss: the option to have a family. I had lived 20 years of manic self-fulfilment, but now all those experiences I had so carefully curated for myself seemed egotistical, empty, without someone to pass them on to. I felt a new longing, not from my body, but from my heart and mind. So I have found myself stranded, single and 40, crushed up against the glass ceiling of my own biology. The passivity feels profoundly humiliating: a progressive draining of dignity and power. I cannot turn back, nor can I find it in myself to settle. I need to fall in love again, to have a baby. But the last year, punctuated by a chain of woeful dates, has been a painful process of letting go. My new love isn't coming. I know I must set myself free. If I have left it too late to have children, it is better to know, and try to move on. I'm scared that the sadness might overwhelm me. But there is no time left for denial. For the first time, I hear the sound of the clock. I am finally called into the doctor's office. Sick with nerves, I distract myself by imagining I'm a character in a Pedro Almodóvar film. We talk in English, but during the scan he dictates my follicular counts in Spanish to the nurses while I stare at the collage of baby photos on the wall. These will predict my fertility levels. When I overhear "muy, muy bueno", I hold my breath. My follicular count is 18, above average for my age. I have a good chance of getting pregnant, though I must also do hormone tests. If I decide to wait for a partner, I can freeze my eggs with a good chance of getting eight to 10, the ideal number to store, in one round. After years of agonising, my life has been changed in a few minutes. The fog in my brain evaporates. My future is opened out again. Back in London, I wait for the results of my hormone tests. My follicle-stimulating hormone count is 6.75 (the lower the number, the better) and my anti-mullerian hormone is 9.2. I spend the night Googling fertility sites and chatrooms, opening me up to an underworld of older women, desperate to conceive, their biological chances reduced to a confusing set of numbers. Both my counts turn out to be excellent for my age. I find research done at the Advanced Fertility Centre in Chicago: in under 35-year-olds, the number of eggs retrieved in women with a follicular count of 16-22 is 10; the IVF success rate for the same number of remaining follicles is 51%. I begin searching under the term "egg freezing". Two thousand babies have been born to date worldwide from frozen eggs for medical – fertility preservation prior to chemotherapy – or social reasons. But in the UK, up to December 2012, only 20 babies have been born to women from their own thawed eggs. But a new method freezing eggs, vitrification, in which eggs are flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen, has improved the chances of them thawing intact to around 95%, compared with 65% using the previous slow-freezing method. Moreover, trials in New York in 2006 found the same pregnancy rates occurring in IVF rounds from frozen eggs as fresh ones. Another study of 900 babies born from frozen eggs shows the same level of birth defects as babies derived from fresh ones. The technology is there and it is improving all the time. I ring private clinics worldwide. A nurse at a Californian centre tells me that of the 150 women whose eggs it has frozen, 21 have returned and 15 have had babies. The Lister Clinic in London, by contrast, has done only 20 thaws, with one pregnancy which ended in miscarriage. At IVI Spain, 800 women (mostly between 36 and 38) have frozen eggs for social reasons in the past four years, but only 21 have returned for treatment. Five healthy babies have been born from these. My best chance of having a baby, of course, is to get pregnant now, on my own. I try hard to contemplate this. But it's a decision that seems just too big and impractical for now. My course of action seems clear: freeze my eggs, and if I don't meet someone in the next few years, have a child with a sperm donor. After years of stasis, I have a clear goal. And it seems like the most important one of my life. Article: 14th December 2013 www.theguardian.com

Men wishing to be fathers should eat their greens - as its good for the baby's health

A potential father's diet prior to conception can play a crucial part in the health of his future children, new research has found. Dr Kimmins, of McGill University in Montreal, compared the health of mice born to fathers deficient in folic acid to that of pups sired by males with normal levels of the vitamin. All of the mothers had normal levels of folic acid. To the researcher’s surprise, the mice born to males low in folic acid were almost 30 per cent more likely to have birth defects, including some severe deformities of the spine and skull. Dr Kimmins said: ‘We were most taken aback by the increased incidence of birth defects. ‘Lots of attention has been paid to a mother’s health pre-conception yet the health of the father has been pretty much ignored Because men have their fertility through their life, they think they are good to go at any time and the focus has been on women because they are the incubators of the pregnancy. ‘But both men and women need to think about what they are doing pre-conception.’ The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that lack of folic acid makes subtle changes to the chemistry of the sperm’s DNA. Men who want to be fathers should also cut back on the junk food, say doctors These then have long-lasting consequences for the development of the unborn baby. Dr Kimmins said it is too early to advise prospective fathers to take supplements, instead they should eat their greens. Good sources of folic acid include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, spinach, asparagus and peas, as well as liver, chickpeas and brown rice. Article: 10th December 2013 www.dailymail.co.uk

Hypnotherapy during childbirth - Can labour be pain free?

Hypnosis for childbirth has garnered a lot of attention in recent years and even has a celebrity following with the likes of Kate Middleton and Kim Kardashian reportedly using the techniques to make their experiences easier. If you’re pregnant and worried about giving birth, you might have wondered if the techniques would work for you. Here, find out what hypnosis really is, how it works, and if it can really make labor pain-free. Fear causes pain Forget the image of a hypnotherapist waving a clock and taking control of your mind. “The definition of hypnosis is relaxation plus focus,” said Cynthia Overgard, founder of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, a prenatal education center in Westport. Just like yoga requires relaxation and deep breathing during a physically challenging moment, hypnosis can do the same for the pregnant mom. HypnoBirthing, a specific hypnosis method and program, is based on the idea that fear and tension will cause pain. When a woman is in labor, oxytocin—an endorphin known as the feel-good, love hormone—not only produces contractions but can help the mother to have a safe, comfortable birth, according to Overgard. “Where birth ends up getting complicated for humans is that women often don’t feel 100 percent safe, trusting and relaxed,” she said. And when that happens, a woman’s body stops producing oxytocin. Adrenaline starts to rise, and it redirects blood flow away from the cervix and the uterus into the arms and legs. The result is a flight or fight response, which can make a woman feel anxious, fearful, and even prevent her cervix from dilating and slow down labor. “Adrenaline or fear, literally (and) physically, turns off labor,” Overgard said. “This goes way beyond just positive thinking. This really comes down to the chemical hormones. It’s a total, pure science.” How hypnosis can help HypnoBirthing uses tools like deep breathing, visualization and relaxation techniques that can help the woman maintain a calm body and mind. During labor, she might dim the lights, keep the room quiet and play relaxing music. Another major component of the program is listening to guided relaxation, which is an intentional way to practice hypnosis and condition the mind and body to be calm and relaxed. Mothers also listen to birth affirmations which can make them feel confident in their ability to give birth. “Your subconscious mind is hearing messages that bypass the conscious mind, and they change the beliefs in your mind,” Overgard said. Word choice is important Another focus of hypnosis is on the words used before and during labor and delivery. “The words we say and the words we hear have a direct impact on the physiology of our body,” Overgard said. In fact, when reassuring words are used as women were administered a local anesthetic, they experienced less pain, according to a study in the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia. “There are subtle ways that you can change the words that are used that can really change that whole experience,” said Dr. William Camann, co-author of the study and director of obstetric anesthesia at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass. For example, in HypnoBirthing, “sensation” is used instead of “pain” and “surge” instead of “contraction.” Colin Christopher, a clinical hypnotherapist who works with expecting mothers throughout their pregnancies, said his clients have experienced shorter labors and a significant reduction in pain. In addition to relaxation techniques and visualization, he uses the hypno-epidural technique to simulate what an epidural would feel like. And instead of using the word “pain,” “we talk about allowing your body to become focused, calm and relaxed,” he said. Does it really work? According to the HypnoBirthing Institute, mothers who used the method were less likely to have cesarean sections, interventions and pre-term babies. Read more...

Brussel sprouts may increase fertility in both men and women

Many people shudder at the thought of Brussels sprouts with their minds conjure up images of bitter, overcooked school vegetables. But new research suggests that couples who are trying for a baby should tuck into a regular helping of the festive staple. According to studies, nine per cent of all conceptions take place over the Christmas period, making December the most fertile month of the year. Parties and festive tipples are thought to be partly responsible for this trend. However, Neema Savvides, a nutritional therapist at the Harley Street Fertility Clinic, says the increased consumption of sprouts could also play a role. She said: ‘Believe it or not, this green micro cabbage is a baby making super food. ‘Firstly, they are bursting with folic acid which is essential for boosting fertility in both men and women. ‘This vitamin rich source also increases sperm levels and helps line the womb with the right nutrients raising sperm survival chances. ‘Another benefit of this folic rich food is that it also helps to decrease the risk of miscarriages and birth defects.’ Brussels sprouts also contain a phytonutrient called di-indolylmethane, which helps women absorb balanced levels of the hormone oestrogen. In fact, it binds to environmental oestrogens, like pesticides and hormones in meat and dairy products, and helps rid the body of excess hormones – this boosts fertility. The vegetable is also thought to lower cholesterol levels and have anti-inflammatory properties. Article: 5th December 2013 www.dailymail.co.uk

Fertility doctors aim to reduce the rate of twins

Doctors are reporting an epidemic — of twins. Nearly half of all babies born with advanced fertility help are multiple births, new federal numbers show. In the five years since the "Octomom" case, big multiple births have gone way down but the twin rate has barely budged. Twins aren't always twice as nice; they have much higher risks of prematurity and serious health problems. Now fertility experts are pushing a new goal: One. A growing number of couples are attempting pregnancy with just a single embryo, helped by new ways to pick the ones most likely to succeed. New guidelines urge doctors to stress this approach. Abigail and Ken Ernst of Oldwick, N.J., did this to conceive Lucy, a daughter born in September. Using one embryo at a time "just seemed the most normal, the most natural way" to conceive and avoid a high-risk twin pregnancy, the new mom said. Not all couples feel that way, though. Some can only afford one try with in vitro fertilization, or IVF, so they insist that at least two embryos be used to boost their odds, and view twins as two for the price of one. Many patients "are telling their physicians 'I want twins,'" said Barbara Collura, president of Resolve, a support and advocacy group. "We as a society think twins are healthy and always come out great. There's very little reality" about the increased medical risks for babies and moms, she said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's most recent numbers show that 46 percent of IVF babies are multiples — mostly twins — and 37 percent are born premature. By comparison, only 3 percent of babies born without fertility help are twins and about 12 percent are preterm. It's mostly an American problem — some European countries that pay for fertility treatments require using one embryo at a time. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine is trying to make it the norm in the U.S., too. Its guidelines, updated earlier this year, say that for women with reasonable medical odds of success, those under 35 should be offered single embryo transfer and no more than two at a time. The number rises with age, to two or three embryos for women up to 40, since older women have more trouble conceiving. To add heft to the advice, the guidelines say women should be counseled on the risks of multiple births and embryo transfers and that this discussion should be noted in their medical records. "I n 2014, our goal is really to minimize twins," said Dr. Alan Copperman, medical director of Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, a Manhattan fertility clinic. "This year I'm talking about two versus one. Several years ago I was talking about three versus two" embryos. Article: 3rd December 2013 www.huffingtonpost.com

Pride Angel Journey | What do lesbians and babies have in common?

They all come out in the end... I was eight days overdue and the pressure was mounting – but unfortunately only metaphorical pressure rather than the literal pressure that might signal labour was imminent. Despite our hopes for the birth centre, induction and the labour ward was once again looming. Then, at bedtime, I sensed change. A slight abdominal ache, back pain, a heaviness between my legs. The next morning brought some splotches of a creamy, bloody stuff and I knew the time was nigh. I had a labour-inducing acupuncture session booked for that morning and, lying on the couch wired up, watching a muscle in my hand quite disconcertingly twitch of its own accord, I mused on how the £38 could perhaps have been more usefully spent. Back home, there was an ominous atmosphere. Looking outside, I expected to see a sky expectant of a storm, heavy and murderous, but the clouds were white and calm as if unaware of what was surely beginning inside me. Preparing lunch, I doubled over briefly – a sudden shooting pain in my abdomen. Just like I sometimes got with my period. Sudden and then gone. And then again, half an hour later. I made myself comfortable in the conservatory with a wheat pack on my abdomen and got my knitting out, ignoring the inkling that such behaviour merited my immediate removal to a retirement home. 8pm. After a shuffle round the streets for a bit of fresh air, we got the tens machine attached and settled down with a film - To Kill a Mockingbird - and popcorn. The pains were sharper now; when I felt them coming, I knelt on the floor and leant over my birthing ball. By 10pm the noise of the film was distracting and the popcorn was starting to make me feel sick. 11pm. The pains (I suspected they were contractions, but was reluctant to use the 'c' word in case they weren't) were stabbing and sudden and I was beginning to rethink my minimum pain-relief birth plan. Sally packed the car and ran me a bath. She phoned the midwife and explained that her partner was in labour (once again 'coming out' which it seemed happened every few days for one or both of us towards the end of our 'lesbian pregnancy'). The midwife told us it could be three or four days yet, so at midnight, we settled down in bed to try and get some rest. Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire 1st December 2013