The lovely Elisabeth Williams with her daughter Alice Jane (13 months). She is also mama to Charlotte (6). Elisabeth had an amazing first pregnancy. She breezed through and went into labor on her own about 10 days early. She only labored for 5 hours without any medication. They didn't know if she was a boy or girl and it was so intense when they put the baby on her chest and asked if she wanted to know what it was, she said no. Labor was so intense she just needed a moment to breathe and asked they just take the baby away. They wrapped her up and brought the baby over and her husband told her she was a girl. Her first pregnancy had been unplanned so they decided to waited a while to conceive again. It took almost a year to the day for her to conceive. She had another relatively easy pregnancy. Around 32 weeks she hadn't felt Alice move very much so she tried to track movements and then went to the hospital. They couldn't find a heartbeat for 20 minutes and the nurse said maybe the baby had passed. They did an ultrasound and were able to find a heartbeat and confirm that nothing had happened and everything was actually fine. Elisabeth says that even with the reassurance her daughter was okay it clouded the rest of her pregnancy and changed her view on having more children in many ways by turning pregnancy into this thing that rather than always be happy and beautiful to something that could be scary. When she went into labor with Alice her water broke with no contractions and had lots of meconium so they went right in. She had planned to have another natural delivery but as thing progressed her daughters heart rate was all over the place. She had to stay in one position for things to be okay and then realized how much she'd relied on positioning and walking to cope with the pain of her first labor. She asked for an epidural and it was like magic. Alice's heart rate kept jumping and dropping and her midwife said the doctor was concerned and wanted to do a cesarean. They agreed to give her a little bit of time but about 15 minutes later she had two big contractions and her daughters heart rate dipped very low and didn't come back up. They rushed her in for an emergency cesarean and it turned out that Alice had wrapped herself in her cord like a ribbon dancer from her toes to her chest and was too stuck to come out. When they pulled her out and she cried Elisabeth was so relieved but then didn't see her for hours because she was so out of it. Elisabeth ended up loosing a lot of blood and needed a transfusion after which she felt much better. She says that she has never had issues with her body even after first pregnancy but after her cesarean birth her body has never been the same and she's really struggled with who she is now and accepting that it will never be the body she had pre Alice. Even though she wouldn't change it for world it's been a very different place for her to be in. She wanted to participate to reclaim who she is as a person and accepting all of that.