My husband and I had decided we wanted two children, as there were at that stage no cousins in the family.
With my son, I was in labour for only five hours, fast for a first child. For my second child, I opted to go the same route - an epidural birth in hospital. But I did a lot of standing during my second pregnancy and worked harder than during the first. I was 35 years old and felt myself fit enough for anything. Our second child took her time arriving and I became tired and fed up.
One night, I was just falling asleep when I felt as if something had shoved me. James immediately jumped up, wondering what was going on. I had no pain and my water hadn't burst, so I didn't think I was in labour. I needed to go to the bathroom and James helped me get there. Still nothing strange.
Then a terrible pain knocked the breath out of me. I told my husband the baby was coming and asked him to phone an ambulance or anybody who could help me.
My poor husband was still trying to put in one of his contact lenses, but was shaking too much and left it. Try phoning your gynaecologist at night, while your wife is giving birth in your bathroom. Suddenly you don't know the number, and can't find it either. James came rushing back, I dug my nails into his arm and begged him to help me. I was terrified.
All these horror stories of mothers and babies dying in childbirth went through my head. We were alone - no doctor, nurse or midwife nearby. Nature had to take its course. I was alone when another contraction rushed through me. I screamed. I was standing up by this stage and when I felt between my legs, the baby was crowning! I went completely calm and took some breaths. I held the baby's head and waited. On the
next contraction, my screams really did those old movies proud. Our neighbours thought we were being attacked and came rushing over.
I knelt down and Alayna slithered out. I sat with a perfect baby girl in my arms and I was still alive. James came rushing back and the sight of his daughter, and the blood-spattered bathroom was, he later told me, too much. "I left one person, he said, and now there are two." James turned the baby upside down to drain out the mucus, she was screaming, so I knew she was fine.
He wrapped her up in some old towels and I held her in my arms, trying to breastfeed her. She wasn't very co-operative. At last James got hold of the doctor, who told him to tie the umbilical cord. James came back with a long string. I told him to first sterilise it- all those movies with women running around with bowls of boiling
water, you see - but he ignored me and tied the cord.
A few moments later I delivered the afterbirth. From the first contraction to expulsion of afterbirth, it had taken about 12 minutes. It had felt longer. Nothing in your life can prepare you for such a moment.
I was in shock, my teeth were actually chattering, my hands shaking, but otherwise I was fine. I took a shower while James bonded with his daughter. We rushed to hospital, leaving our son with his shocked grandparents.
At the hospital they had to sew me up, as I had torn quite spectacularly. Afterwards they had to give me a sleeping pill to calm me down - all that adrenaline had nowhere to go and I was keeping the other tired women awake with my constant chattering. The only complications were that one of Alayn's eyes was blood-red, which took a while to heal, and that she was a bit blue, with a thin layer of blood under her skin that disappeared over time.
My daughter weighed 4kg, and is named Alayna Lakeisha. Alayna means "beautiful dear child" Lakeisha means "life" and "woman". She was born on a balmy November night in 2003. Today she is an intelligent hardheaded girl who will show you the exact spot that she was born.