I have decided to write a blog about our first child, Melissa Ann, as I approach her 18th birthday, I realise that it is now time to write her story and hopefully it will help someone else on their journey.

I will be writing this in segments as even now I can not sit here and write it all in one sitting!

My husband and I met at youth group at our local church in New Zealand. We met at a missionary meeting and joked that we were God's mission for each other!

We became engaged at Christmas 1979 and due to my age, we were not married until March 1981 when I was almost 19 and my husband was 22. In the early years of our marriage we were content with there being just the 2 of us and had no plans for children. We had 2 dogs - Sam & Cassie. My husband was not keen to have children and I would never of forced him to start a family (though I did pray about this......a lot!) I decided that if I was not going to have children then I wanted a career......so I entered nursing school (a childhood dream) when I was 28!

In my last year of school, I became concerned that I had not got my period, though I was never very regular. I had had symptoms in the past of pregnancy but had always been negative. I started suspecting when we went for a church BBQ at the park and I commented on how much the grass stunk! So off I went to the doctor - I was 10 weeks pregnant! I had been living in denial! This was a time of mixed emotions - happy, shock, fear all mixed together!

I remember going to visit my best friend, a mother of 3, she had always wanted to be present at the delivery of someone else's baby! I told her that I knew of a delivery that she would be able to attend......she was excited, who? ME!! She was ecstatic!

When we told our families of our exciting news there were mixed emotions too......my mother in law did not believe me and thought that it was a joke! My parents were crying and so excited, though my sister had just announced that she was pregnant too and was a soon to be single parent.......we, on the other hand, had been married for 12 years!

I had a very easy and enjoyable pregnancy, preparing for our baby. Back then in New Zealand, we only had the ultrasound at 18 weeks unless there was a problem and few people found out the sex of the baby, so I was knitting, sewing and planning with neutral colors. My sister in law was living in England at the time and she was mailing cute baby clothes and supplies to me too! We had the baby stroller in a neutral color with baby disney and my mother in law was knitting a beautiful baby shawl.

I went to a health fair and met the local midwives and chose Angela who quickly became part of our family and lives. I was also under the care of my doctor, but we lived in a small town and he was concerned that if there were any complications requiring me to go to the "big hospital" I would need the midwife as he could not go with me. We agreed with this plan, hence the arrival of Angela into our lives.

As a child, I had had heart surgery, so I needed to be assessed by a cardiologist. As we have socialised medicine, I was on a waiting list to see him and finally saw him when I was 32 weeks pregnant - all was fine!