Back in May I wrote about my experience of cycling while seven months pregnant and now, as three-month old Herbie kips in the next room (perhaps dreaming of his first bike?), I thought you might like to know how it all went.

While I'd said I was keeping an open mind about cycling right until the point of lift off, I hadn't really imagined that I would do it. And certainly not given the heatwave we had at the start of summer, when the mercury seemed to nestle in the high 20s for weeks on end. Yet that's exactly what I ended up doing. In fact I had a very enjoyable ride up the hill home from yoga the night before I went into labour, overtaking a bemused middle-aged commuter in the process.

At eight months, even my bike-loving husband was tentatively asking when I might call it a day, or at the very least switch to the upright Dutch-style bike I'd bought for the latter stages of pregnancy in place of my single speed. I did often wonder, "Might this be my last week? Is it going to get too difficult? Will I get all wobbly?" but perhaps because I was going at such a glacial pace it never seemed to be an issue and the only times I felt faint or uncomfortable in the heat were on the rare days that I squished my ever-expanding belly into a sweaty tube carriage.

Two weeks out, I finished work so stopped my 15-mile cross-London commute but kept riding shorter local trips, in part for the endorphin hit but also because cycling was so much easier than waddling down the street. Not that I was really waddling, as aside from my sizable bump I'd managed to keep in surprisingly ok shape. As I sat with other pregnant women with similar due dates to mine, comparing their myriad ailments, from insomnia and varicose veins, to backache and breathlessness, I was almost embarrassed by how good I felt. I'd deliberately take stairs slowly as they huffed and puffed beside me and sheepishly lock my bike up around the corner at antenatal classes. Once, I was busted and was quick to pretend I'd cycled two minutes down the road rather than the 15-minute jaunt I'd actually done.

The pros of keeping your weight down in pregnancy have recently been well-documented and though I have no science to back my specific case up I firmly believe staying fit with all that cycling (and yoga towards the end) led me to have a relatively straight-forward, and if not enjoyable then certainly endurable, birth. Especially compared to all the horror birth stories I'd heard other mums bandy about. My labour took just nine hours, which is pretty quick for a first child, and I relied on my leg strength a lot throughout and especially during the – for want of a better expression – pushing phase.

The cycle travel author Josie Dew had compared childbirth to taking on mountain passes and told me: "Cycling helps you push through the pain barriers of labour." I'm sure tackling tough peaks on a four-day charity ride in Cornwall last summer helped me mentally. And once Herbie was born I did feel the kind of dizzy euphoria you might associate with having done Ditchling Beacon on the South Downs, albeit 80 times in a row.

I appreciate there could be no link between the pregnancy and birth I had and the regular cycling. I could just have been lucky. Herbie is a happy, healthy and, for now at least, chilled-out little boy, so I feel extremely fortunate as it is. The only mild downer, which I appreciate isn't really a downer in the scheme of things, is how little I've been able to cycle since he was born. I can safely say I was in better shape when I had him than I am now!

Quite soon after the birth my bright blue steed had started to call my name across the front room (I never did switch to the Dutch-style bike). But my doctor suggested I might like to wait three weeks before taking it out for a spin. When I did it, I felt like a kid again and I still do on the two or so, painfully short, rides I try to fit in on a weekly basis. Commuting by bike is pretty much the only thing I miss about working, especially when my husband rides off into the kind of crisp blue mornings we've been having recently. I don't just miss the buzz of riding I miss it being something I do everyday, rather than have to squeeze in, and I also miss being a part of the wider London cycling community – my thoughts on Boris's (or should that be Ken's!) bikes are formed from what I've read rather than seen.

But I don't want to wish this time away, as I know before long I'll be back riding to work with a child seat either enhancing or ruining the look of my bike, depending on your take. Until then I've invested in a turbo trainer so I can put the miles in while Herbie bats at his playmat. Let's hope he likes bikes.

• Sam Haddad is the editor of Cooler, a sport and style magazine for young women