Childbirth and publishing

Cogitating on the similitude between childbirth and publishing.  Did a bit of a repeat performance on the childbirth bit with my adopted daughter just before Christmas, it was pretty much as I remembered it, lots of pushing, shoving and occasional swearing, finally rewarded by a miraculously wonderful, beautiful baby.
Writing seems to me to be a bit like that.  I mean, the initial idea is wonderful, you write the stories in a state of happy euphoria, the idea gestates and gets bigger and bigger (and consequently more expensive) until the day arrives and publication starts.
Right, first off don't listen to anyone who tells you that the easy peesy super duper practically automatic software will make a dawdle of the whole thing.  Oh no!  This is your shove 'n' push bit.  Page set up, check, page preview, convert to html, load into superbooky thing, convert, preview, and... some idiot (you) just cut all your illustrations in half :-(
Back to Word, wiggle, wiggle, hard page breaks, yes!  Bound to be okay now except... BUGGER!  (oops!)  Where did the 28 blank pages come from?  Squirm, push, moan...  Finally manages to get down to a mere 3 blank pages.  Press the 'publish' button because I am axhausted and 'can no more'...

Beautiful baby?  Not sure, nobody's cooing and going "chuckie, chuckie" - very few people have seen my thread on Facebook, even fewer are passing it on - this is a moment of extreme ANXST!  Okay, shoulders back, no problem, go lookie on Amazon site - lookie, lookie, NOTHING - ah yes, wee message saying no figures until its been 2 months ... arghhhhhhh!!!!!

Never mind, perhaps someone's written a review?  Scurry back to Amazon... NOPE - heart like lead, my baby is a reject, something went wrong in gestation, why oh why?  Phone rings, illustrator, are we on for volume 2?  'Course we are!  Just give me time to sketch out a rough translation and its chocks away! 
Forgot to mention its an excellent way of losing weight ;-)