My baby is trying to come early

This week: At just 27 weeks, it feels like my bun is trying to get out of the oven uncooked

The day I turned 27 weeks pregnant, my whole body felt different. Only a woman who has been in labour before knows what it feels like, and, even 15 years after my last birth, I could tell it was happening again. Instead of being overdue like my last three babies, this one was jumping the gun by a whopping three months.

The contractions I’d been having since week 16 – yes, this baby is keen

– were suddenly much stronger. The dull, aching “labour-like” pain had spread right across my lower back, and I felt as if I had really bad flu. The weight and pressure pushing down on my pelvis was so huge that I could hardly walk and it felt as if my insides were being squeezed out. I was breathless, having trouble speaking, and couldn’t move away from the pain.

In short, this little bun was giving all the signs that it was trying to get out of the oven. Uncooked.

With Mike away at a funeral in Scotland and my parents abroad, I called the maternity hospital. They told me to come in immediately. There followed all the usual prodding and poking, but this pre-term scare was completely new to me, and I had no idea what was happening, or what to expect.

My Holiest of Holies was found to be as closed as a bank on a Sunday afternoon, which was very good news, but then came the bad: a positive hormone test, which gave me a 50per cent chance of going into pre-term labour within the next 48 hours.

Alone, with no hospital bag packed, no food or money, in pain, and with my baby having a 75per cent chance of survival if she came out, I might have shed a tear or two.

To help my baby’s lungs develop a little faster, I was told I should have steroid injections, just in case she were to arrive early.

“It’s one of the nastiest injections we give. It can really sting – for quite a long time,” said the nurse.

To cheer me up before One Of The Nastiest Injections, I was offered a gourmet meal of what looked like congealed haemorrhoid and pig’s vomit. To be fair, it was free, I was very grateful, and it was some of the best pig’s vomit I’ve ever eaten.

After much discussion, they decided I was free to go, but if anything changed I had to come back. Immediately. This baby would need intensive life support within minutes. I made it through the night, and returned for a second dose of steroids the next day.

This little charade went on for the next week. More pain, more appointments, more investigations, more No Clue At All What Is Causing This Or What Is Going To Happen.

The hospital staff were fantastic. And so were many of you. After sharing my pre-term labour news on social media, I was flooded with messages of support from parents with the most incredible stories of survival, some of unbearable sadness, but all of hope. Some babies were born as early as 23 weeks and went on to be happy, healthy children, despite a vulnerable start.

At last, after a week of me doing almost nothing, not being able to walk much, sleep or breathe without pain, things gradually settled down. With every passing day she was getting a little stronger, and a little bigger, and a little more likely to make it.

I knew nothing about premature labour before this, but I know one thing; the next time I raise money for a charity, it’s going to be for a neonatal unit. Having come so close to needing one (and we still might), I realised how incredibly important they are – and how many families’ lives they help.

Next time: I’m into the home straight

‘The weight on my pelvis was so huge … it felt as if my insides were being pushed out’