Ciara. One of those names which came to us at about five in the morning and just seemed to fit. Ciara. If you hear it often enough it can sound like one of those one-word names that Brazilian footballers have. Ronaldo to Edmundo to Ciara. Goal!

Ten days late and 13 hours of labour and she was worth the wait. At 8lb 3oz she is a big baby, but what struck everyone was how long she was. Already she fills the length of the little cot in the hospital and the first set of clothes I put on her fit her perfectly. People are wondering where I was hiding her.

A girl! So much for female intuition. I was sure there was a boy on the way, but looking back I think that at training and in the gym I was talking to too many men. They were all campaigning for me to name a son after them and muddled the wavelengths.

The hardest thing about this first week has been having to leave Ciara in the hospital every evening. She had a stressful arrival, leaving her breathing a little quickly. The doctors worried that she might have an infection, so they kept her in after they discharged me. Every day, though, she's perkier and we're hoping to bring her home soon.

Then we'll fall into a routine and I'll be able to bring her about the place during the day, showing her off to all those friends who have been asking and wondering for the last few months.

One day I headed out to the park for a walk and there was a photographer from the Press Association there. "You coming home with your baby today then?" Now I know how the Spice Girls feel!

Ciara presented herself at two o'clock in the morning. A little while later Nick phoned my parents in Cobh to tell them the news. Somehow or other the news was on RTE at nine o'clock later that morning. I haven't a clue how that happened. All the midwives in the hospital are Irish, but I can't imagine them putting in phone calls to RTE at that hour of the morning. Somebody told somebody, though.

It made for a small complication, too. I got up that morning and needed a bit of fresh air. Ciara was fast asleep and the nurses said you can go off now and, never having been in hospital before, I misunderstood them slightly. So I decided to walk down to the newsagents. Nick's mother was downstairs in the hospital and Nick had gone to the airport, so rather than sit in the room waiting for Ciara to wake up we went for a walk to Richmond Park. I felt a little sore, but I expected I'd feel a lot worse.

I didn't know at the time that the news had been on RTE. So while I was out the switchboard lit up with Sunday papers and other people calling to find out more. With the switchboard starting to jam, the head sister came looking for me and discovered I was missing. She went frantic. Missing patient, everyone looking for me, and me walking around Richmond Park in the sunshine with Nick's mother.

When I got back I heard her on the phone hassling security. I told her that I'd never done anything like that before and didn't know the rules. It seemed as if I was pregnant for a long time. I went to Wimbledon the day Ciara was due. I saw a little bit of Tim Henman before the rain came. Centre Court, front row seats. It had to rain. Play stopped. Wandering around the place I ran into John Inverdale of the BBC. As usual, they were trying to fill time while it was raining, so he had me do a little bit with him. In the middle of the interview he said: "Sonia, I believe you're seven months pregnant."

"Seven months? No, I'm due today."

And so the whole of Wimbledon knew and braced itself. I thought I might work the interview to my favour, though. Having been rained off the first day I asked Inverdale if he could get a ticket for the following day. Somehow he scrounged one up.

Next day, of course, it rained all day long. No tennis. Not a ball played. Optimistic as ever, though, I went down on my own on the train. Wasted a day in the rain at Wimbledon. Couldn't even get up the nerve to find Inverdale and look for another ticket.

I tried to keep going with some sort of routine right up 'til the birth. I did weights with my friends Richard and Brenda all the way to the Wednesday before Ciara was born. My exercise diary tells me that the day before she arrived I was on the exercise bike for 90 minutes, swam for 15 minutes and walked two miles.

Over in the gym they'd be surprised every day I'd walk in. "Have you not had that baby yet?"

That's one of the things about not having her home yet. I haven't had the chance to show Ciara off.

I'm looking forward to introducing Ciara to my life. I wandered down to the track the other day to see all my Kenyan friends and they were keen to see her. Moses Kiptanui called around the other night and he says she should be named Jemuta, which he says means one who arrives in the early hours of the morning. As regards getting back to the track, I was just reading a book this week about Ingrid Kristiansen. She trained right until the day she gave birth and was running again 10 days later. That gives me 'til midweek next week. I'll go for a two-mile brisk walk, perhaps. I won't hurry back and risk injury.

I haven't had time to really think about running. I'm relaxed about coming back, not like when I have been injured and have been dying to come back. I don't think I lost too much fitness over the last while and the important thing now is to listen to advice, enjoy the new part of my life and get it all right.

We had a strange start. It wasn't an easy arrival and Ciara didn't really come out smiling.

She's smiling a little now. I can tell she knows when I'm there and when I'm going away. She can hear or smell you or sense you somehow and that's a nice feeling. It's the hardest part about her being in the hospital, wondering if she can sense when you have to go away. A lot of people tell you about these feelings before you have a baby but you never understand it until you have been there yourself.

It's wonderful but at the same time everyone has to go back to work in the end. I know eventually I will have to start going away for races and leaving Ciara with Nick, but I think we can co-ordinate our lives and jobs so that it doesn't get lonely for any of us.

It's a strange feeling right now. When I come home from the day at the hospital or go to do something during the daytime she's in my head all the while. This little person in my head, always there.

Next week she'll be home and we'll start fitting into each other's routine. The next year or so is important for the three of us.

Sonia O'Sullivan was talking to Tom Humphries.