In 2026, The Big Issue celebrates its 30th birthday – the perfect time to revisit our fave stories from the past three decades. For Mother’s Day, we flip back to Ed#208 – the grand finale of one woman’s hilarious and heartfelt pregnancy journey, chronicled across ten editions of the magazine.
Diary of a Pregnant Woman
by Gina Morris
Saturday 26 June, 41 weeks 2 days pregnant
I AM IN LABOUR! It’s 11pm and for the past five hours I have been having regular contractions progressing from 10 to five minutes apart. This is it, the ‘Bean’ is finally coming out. I feel scared but focused. My husband is by my side staring at me intently. He is very excited. He is eagerly writing down the duration and frequency of each contraction with a huge grin on His face. I am delighted my pain is bringing Him such joy.
It’s 11.17pm and the contractions have stopped. I try bouncing on the inflatable exercise ball to try and ‘boing!’ them into action again but to no avail. They’ve gone. He is confused. I feel utterly deflated.
Sunday 27 June, 41 weeks 3 days
We’ve been out walking and shopping for most of the day. It’s now around 5pm and I am lying on the sofa eating a Mint Slice watching Shrek on DVD. I go to shift position when I am suddenly hit by a MASSIVE contraction, so long and intense it makes me yodel. Two minutes later I am hit by another. This time He is not grinning. I tell Him we have to go to the hospital now. The half-hour journey is cursed by road works, detours and consistent red lights. Somehow He manages to remain calm. I am not calm. I am on all fours on the back seat with my face jammed against the rear window frothing at the traffic behind like a rabid nodding dog.
We arrive at the hospital and I am immediately whisked up to a delivery room in a wheelchair. I am not coping well with the pain as she is resting on my spine. The midwife offers me gas and air and I take a few frantic sucks but it just makes me feel sick and dizzy so I stop. Instead I try howling through the agony. He strokes my hair and tells me I sound like Tarzan. I tell Him He’s not helping. Three hours after the first spontaneous contraction began I beg for an epidural.
It’s now 10pm. I am lying on the bed with a pain-relieving drip in my hand watching my excruciating contractions on a monitor. This is bliss. I am five centimetres dilated and progressing well. I am also wondering what is making that low rattling noise. I look around and catch Him sucking on my gas and air, getting high. He looks at me and giggles. I tell Him I never intended on having the laughing cavalier as my birthing buddy.
Monday 28 June, 41 weeks 4 days
At 4am the midwife reports that I am almost fully dilated and will probably be ready to give birth in two hours. She suggests I stop taking the epidural so I will be able to feel when to push. I nervously agree.
It’s 6am. I have begun pushing. Two hours and 20 minutes later, I am still pushing. The epidural has totally worn off, I am in agony and completely exhausted. She is stuck just by the exit gate. He is beside Himself, He keeps announcing how He can see the top of her head. I am aware that the room is suddenly full of people – two midwives, three students, two doctors and a grey-haired man in a suit (I later learn he’s on the board of directors). One of the doctors is showing me a suction cup (a ventouse) and explaining what he’s about to do. I tell him to just do it. Two contractions and eight pushes/pulls later out pops her big head. My husband is in tears and repeatedly kissing my sweating forehead with His hot lips. He is soon brought to his senses when He sees the doctor whip out a big pair of scissors and perform a swift episiotomy (a cut) so I am able to get her even bigger shoulders out.
The midwife lays my newborn baby girl on my chest and we look at her face for the first time. I am blown away by how beautiful she is – not squashed and wrinkly and green but rosy cheeked and clear skinned with big blue eyes and a shock of dark brown hair. “Hello Lillah Rae,” He says. I am bursting with love. For her. For Him.
And so, at 8.34am, on Monday 28 June, 11 days later than scheduled, I am finally a mother. We are finally a family. For a few incredible moments we all stare at each other taking in the newness of it all. Then the midwife takes her to be weighed. She’s big, 4.25 kilos (9.5 pounds). The placenta is big too, just short of a kilo. “You did well,” says the doctor who is stitching me up. “You must have been huge.”
It’s now 5pm and the hours after the birth have felt very unreal. He claims I got up off the table all by myself, walked over to the maternity ward, signed some forms, unpacked my suitcase, showered and fed Lillah. It’s all a blur to me. Must be delayed shock. What is very real is the little person in the cot next to my bed. We can’t take our eyes off her. We can’t believe we get to keep her.
Wednesday 30 June
It’s 7.30pm and we have just arrived home with our daughter. We decided to discharge ourselves from hospital a day early as I could no longer bear the sound of screaming babies in my head or the fact He had to leave the ward at 9pm every night. She is asleep in the cot. I am lying down on the bed looking at her through the rungs, stroking my empty belly and thinking back over the months of my pregnancy. I remember when she was just a shrimp. When her heart first started beating. Feeling her flutter inside me at 16 weeks and kicking my ribs with her big feet at 37 weeks. I remember all the hours spent wondering what she would look like. Now her features are etched into my mind. And every time I close my eyes I see her beautiful face.
by Gina Morris illustration by Heidi Hibberd
First published in Ed#208
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