Hi Gabriel

My H didn't do anything at dd1's birth because he was 21 and scared, and the doctors intervened too much so I ended up with doctor-caused injuries which I was not too impressed about.

2nd and 3rd time around he was great, very supportive, telling me how to breathe and stuff. He seemed to know more about it than I did! and he didn't let the dr's near me, if fact, once he actually stood between me and this rather over-zealous midwife to get her to back off so he rapidly went up in my eyes at the time, I thought he was my hero, I couldn't stop kissing him afterwards - the midwife left the room, I think she was embarrassed

The thing is, it can swing too far in that direction and I ended up being in a sitch where he was so enthusiastic that he wanted them for himself.

DD4 was born at home without medical assistance and without his presence.

The roles have not completely reversed as I have dd4 full time and strangely enough he has described the mother role as 'nurturing' and his role as 'rule setting' - but I can't exactly be their main nurturer in these cirumstances.

I try to enjoy my time with them as much as possible but it's still fairly forced, rather than natural. My self-esteem was lowered drastically due to the custody battle and still hasn't come back.

For instance, I was picked on in a court report for showing dd's photographs while they were with me (they said I was 'harping on the past') and the other day, my dd2 asked me if she could look in my photo albums and I just snapped
'No!' at her.
She looked a bit taken aback as if she didn't know what she'd said.

It's going to take a while before I stop analysing my every move like the court did, but I'm getting better at it.

Jo.