The story of baby Grace's journey into the world, as told by her mum Kate.

"Grace Elizabeth Hocking arrived a good five weeks early on Monday April 16th (her due date was May 14th)!

It was obviously quite a surprise – I had a hind-water leak at 35 weeks, it was hardly noticeable but I went to the doctor the Friday before she was born, thinking I would be sent home (better to be safe than sorry, I thought).

However, it turned out my waters had in fact broken, so I was admitted to hospital at 35-and-a-half weeks. Luckily, there was no sign of infection, so the doctor put me on antibiotics for the weekend and waited until I was 36 weeks, at which point, I was induced.

I did actually go into labour the night before being induced, but the contractions were still irregular and, given I didn’t know when my waters broke, the doctor was keen to get the baby out due to the risk of infection.

However, after a fairly stressful weekend worrying about the baby, the actual birth was quite relaxed. I was 4cm when I was induced at 9.30am and Grace was born by 2pm, so it went quite quickly.

She was nice and healthy, albeit on the smaller side – weighing in at 2.62kg. After some long days and nights expressing so she could take the bottle, she has stacked on the weight and is now able to be breastfed all the time – which is awesome, no more cleaning the pump at 3am!

So while the birth didn’t 'go to plan' (I didn’t even really have a plan – but, having a premmie certainly was not on my radar!), I am still so grateful we did the prenatal classes. I used the breathing techniques to help calm me down while I was in the hospital before Grace was born. It was a really stressful time, and it was a really good tool to help me focus and relax.

She has been such a good little baby so far; I am loving being a mum! And Joe (and Ned, the dog) are also both completely besotted with Grace."