Collapsing after suffering a massive fit brought on by the complications of pre eclampsia .

Spending a couple of days in intensive care after being cut from here to there so my twin boys could be brought into the world whilst the surgeons diligently battled to save the life of their mother .

Projectile vomiting exorcist style across my own bedding after insisting crossly upon waking from my induced coma that i really needed a cup of tea and it reacted badly with whatever medication id been given .

Trying to walk just days later to get some breakfast with my partner and discovering the emergency caesarean I’d had had left me feeling like my chest was stapled to my knees.

You certainly couldn’t accuse me of bringing my children into the world via a “natural birth” and as such for a good few years after they were born i did beat myself up quite badly over the fact I hadn’t done it the way that was perceived and promoted to be the best way.

As other mums shared all the gory details and stories of what had happened as they delivered their offspring all i could do was sit and nod for when it came to mine i had nothing to share as apart from the details described above my recollection of events that day are pretty sketchy as i spent most of it out for the count on an operating table.

However gradually I learnt to accept the fact that while I hadn’t been able to be the textbook earth mother bringing forth life down the correct route of the birthing canal it didn’t make me any less of a mother and that in fact delivering them the way i had had to was the difference between whether both mother and babies had lived to tell this tale.

So i’m glad that The Royal college of midwives has dropped its 12 year campaign promoting “normal” births admitting that it made some women feel like failures for having to use medical intervention .

For there is no wrong or right way to give birth , normal and natural should mean using whatever procedure is necessary for little ones to make their appearance into the world safely.