ok detauled birth story coming up.
Around 3am on tuesday i woke up having contractions every 10mins or so, but by 5am ithad all tailed off so i went back to bed.
During the day i took a couple of short walks, and had a few more contractions, inc when i went to see my midwife in the afternoon.
My older dd's had been taken ice-skating with lisad123, dd4 was at in-laws for the afternoon and dh was at work, so i was relaxing inbetween pains in a quiet house.
The girls came home, so i started getting dinner on for them. Lisad123 was round, and she pointed out to me they were coming every 5mins now, not every 15 as they had been, so made me call dh home from work, call my parents to babysit etc etc. so around 5.30pm we were going to the hospital.
At 6pm i was 3-4cm and i thought things were slowing down again.
I bounced a lot on a ball between contractions but couldnt stay on it during a contractions so did a lot of jumping up quickly, swearing 
, standing around between contractions as would get 15mins of nothing and then 15mins of contractions constantly.
around 8pm was having a lot of pressure in my lower back at the end of contractions, so asked for another VE and was 5-6cm dilated.
the pressure in my back built up a lot until 10.30 when i asked dh to call the mw back in to get ready. i was all set to give birth standing up but just before 11pm i wanted to lie down. this is what happened with dd4 as well. no idea why.
I gave the gas and air a try at this point as was getting 'pushy' with each contraction. I think on the 2nd contraction with the g+a my waters went and babys head was there. midwife had just enough time to get her gloves on. 
baby decided to try and cry before he was fully born, and i could hear him crying which made me laugh a bit as his shoulders were still in. one more contraction and his shoulders and body popped out. He looked so small compared to my previous 9lb-ers, and i said 'oh my skinny little boy, you're tiny' even dh said how small he was. we had lots of skin to skin and breastfeeding started well.
mw was great, very hands off, and just let me get on with things.
unfortnautly as the hospital was so stretched, i couldnt get off delivery suite into maternity. so spent all of weds trying to get discharged. the power went out 5 times, due to a fire in the hospital 
meals were odds and sods of what was left from the other wards, aftercare was bad. they will be getting a complaint from us in due course as we werent happy with the aftercare.