"You've asked to know the sex too haven't you?" she asked, as she poked my abdomen viciously with her portable vibrator. Sounds very boyish at the moment she announced confidently, as she monitored the baby's heart rate.

Exactly two weeks and two days following the amniocentesis, whilst I was still lying in bed, Mike came bounding up the stairs and appeared at the bedroom door brandishing a brown envelope, bearing the postmark of the hospital that conducted the tests on the fluid sample.

Shall we open this together? he asked, launching himself horizontally onto the bed, which created a catapult effect, sending my backside two feet off of the mattress and back down again.

We huddled together, as he ripped open the envelope and unfolded the official, white letter, which was headed, Oxford Medical Genetics Laboratories.

I cannot describe the rush of ecstasy that I felt as I read and re-read the letter, almost in disbelief. Our baby had no major chromosomal abnormalities and when I read that we were going to have a little girl, I let out a whoop of delight.

I felt slightly triumphant in that I had reached 19 weeks without any significant problems and that these results were another token of proof that advanced age alone doesn't automatically write a woman off with regard to a healthy pregnancy with a normal outcome.

I can t deny that I didn t exactly bloom over the following months as a result of the general discomforts of pregnancy, including the ***hyperemesis that seemed to linger for a lot longer than is regarded normal. However, I had suffered in exactly the same way with the others, so I knew that the degree of sickness was in no way related to my age.

At each antenatal appointment, my blood pressure was comfortably low, my uterus was exactly the right size for dates, the baby s heartbeat was strong and, for all intents and purposes, my pregnancy was extremely healthy and progressing normally.

At 31 weeks, I was diagnosed with Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction. During pregnancy the hormones soften and stretch the ligaments of the body in order to enable the pelvis to open slightly during labour, affording a quick escape route for the baby. During pregnancy the Symphysis can separate slightly, causing pain and making everyday functions like walking or turning over in bed difficult or even impossible.

Again, I was told that this wasn t a condition of age but, on the contrary, a condition that frequently affected athletes. Having attended the gym five times a week prior to becoming pregnant, I attributed it to having flexible bones! This dysfunction caused intense pain in the buttocks and pubic area, which also radiated down my legs. The pain was worse when I had been sitting for protracted periods at my computer, after which I would find walking quite unbearable and I began moving with the grace and agility of a lame, overweight duck.

Whenever I mentioned the pain to someone, the reply would inevitably be, Well, you re not as young as you used to be. Nobody s as young as they used to be, because time never stands still, which serves to highlight the pointlessness of that statement.

During the third trimester, when I triumphantly strode into my antenatal appointments, my midwife was as jovial as ever.

Oh dear. Rather a lot of glucose in your water. That s three consecutive occasions now. Better make a day ward appointment for you to have a glucose tolerance test. Gestational diabetes can be more common in older mothers you know , she chortled, forever reminding me that I was an antique..

The test for diabetes was conducted a week later and the test results, which I received the following day, were completely normal. I didn't have diabetes. Yet another bonus point. Were there any age-related conditions or risks left to throw at me before I delivered my daughter?

She s still lying with her spine to your spine, said the midwife at my 37 week appointment, after vigorously pressing around my lower abdomen and then announcing that she had been squashing the baby s cheeks. She shook her head and chuckled to herself whilst muttering something about a prolonged, backache labour.

Of course, it is your fourth child and there's the age factor to consider , she said in her, don t-say-I-didn't-warn-you type of voice. You realise that because everything s stretched and not as firm as it used to be, it s more common for the baby to be lying in an awkward position.

At 38 weeks I went to the hospital for, what I hoped would be, my final appointment with the consultant. And it was. Although I never actually got as far as seeing the consultant.

Sitting in the waiting area, I bent forward to pick up a magazine and my waters broke.

As soon as I arrived on the delivery ward (with water still gushing out of me), the contractions began coming every three to five minutes, increasing in intensity. My wet clothes were put into a plastic bag and I was enrobed in one of those attractive nylon hospital gowns with broken ties at the back. This afforded the rest of the ward and excellent view of my bum and of the wad of sanitary pads stuffed between my legs to soak up the fluid that was draining ceaselessly from me! Mike arrived in a whirl of excited anticipation, clutching my inadequately packed hospital bag. This was the same bag that I had packed 10 weeks earlier, but then decided to unpack the day before and only put in the barest of essentials, since I had planned to go home within 24 hours following the birth. The essentials included a packet of fudge, a Feng Shui book (so I could re-arrange the labour room between contractions) and a pair of jeans in anticipation of my body springing back to pre-pregnancy size within two seconds of the birth.

After lying in a pool of amniotic fluid for half an hour, I was given an internal examination but told that I wasn't at all dilated. The cheerful midwife also informed me that because my waters had broken first that I would have what was termed as a dry labour, meaning that it could be prolonged and more painful. And no, it wasn't anything to do with my age.

After the first half hour in one of the delivery rooms, Mike was high on entinox ( I love this stuff, he slurred, eyes rolling back in his head) and I was hanging over the bed in pain.

Several hours and hundreds of sanitary pads later, I had been pierced with a variety of needles in miscellaneous parts of my body, wired up to an assortment of drips, including an epidural, after screaming for total pain relief. The first epidural only numbed one side of my body, but that's another hysterical story.

By midnight, Mike was asleep in the rocking chair, after having consumed the entire bag of fudge, and I counted the cracks in the ceiling whilst pondering my fate.

By the time I gave birth to our beautiful, perfect baby daughter, Lauren Erica at 6.20am on 12 November 1999, after a 14 hour labour and no sleep, I was in a better condition than Mike. He was sporting the 6am shadow, office attire that he d been wearing since dawn the previous day, dark circles under the eyes and was shuffling around like a cripple as a result of having nodded off to sleep in an awkward position. I also believe he was suffering from an overdose of entinox, if that s possible.

Two clamps were needed for the baby s cord, which the midwife said, was the longest and thickest she had ever seen. She said that Lauren had obviously been a very well-nourished baby. Hah! Another point for the antique!

The day following the birth, Lauren and I came home, both in excellent health.

Life with a new baby, after a twelve-year break, has been a breeze. Apart from my breasts, which still enter the room half an hour before the rest of my body, all my other vital organs have resumed their original and rightful positions. OK, so my abdomen resembles a blancmange but, of course, it has nothing to do with my age!

Footnotes:

*Folic Acid is a B vitamin that can help to protect your unborn baby against birth defects of the spine and brain. Folic Acid is found in green leafy vegetables, beans, citrus fruits and juices, whole grain foods and liver. However, Liver should not be eaten during pregnancy because of the high content of Vitamin A, which can be damaging to the foetus. The latest findings published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggest that taking a Folic Acid supplement can also help to prevent Down Syndrome.

**Nuchal Translucency Test = an ultrasound examination that measures the layer of fluid at the back of the neck (Nuchal Translucency Layer). Babies with Down Syndrome have an increased thickness of this layer.

***Hyperemesis = severe sickness, often resulting in dehydration.

E-mail Jan at anneliese928@yahoo.co.uk or visit her web site at: http://www.my.treeway.com/allwrite

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