I'm not a huge mumsnet poster, but here is the story of my third labour and birth ( my second Homebirth ) if anyone would like to read it.
I was in bed all day on the Friday (3rd March) with some kind of fluey bug, feeling really rotten, and having on/off Braxtons all day. On the Saturday morning I woke at 5.00am with mild contractions. I was feeling better from the bug, but really tired and weak. The contractions stopped after a couple of hours, and then returned at lunchtime, and again in the afternoon. They were like reasonably painful period pains, and we uhmmed and aahed about whether Mother in law should take the kids back home with her that evening. After the contractions died down again at teatime, we decided they should stay at home - I didn't think anything would be happening that night.
I went to bed at 9.00pm and was just drifting off to sleep when the contractions began again at 10.00pm. They were quite mild, but too painful to sleep through. About 11.00pm I decided to go downstairs where DH was sleeping (big fat frequently weeing pregnant wife needs her space in bed!) and told him I thought this might be the start of "it". I lay on the sofa and tried to snooze, but by midnight I realised that we probably weren't going to get any sleep that night, as I was having to breathe through the pain. I made a cup of tea and DH helped me put my TENS machine on. Rosie woke up (she’s teething) and DH settled her back down, and we decided we should phone MIL to come and collect them. I didn't feel I could fully relax with them in the house. We also decided to phone the Midwife, just to let her know things were happening. MIL and MW arrived at about the same time - about 1.00am I think, and the children were bundled into her car half asleep - they were angels apparently, and stayed asleep when she put them back to bed the other end.
Barbara, the midwife, gave me an internal examination on the sofa, and told me I was barely dilated and the cervix was high and hard. This surprised me a little, as the pain of the contractions was comparable to when I was about 5 or 6 cm last time. The difference was, with my two previous labours, the waters had broken and trickled out slowly over the day before labour started, so softening the cervix and getting things going. My body was obviously working extra hard to try to get things going. Barbara gave me a sweep to try to speed things up and suggested that I get moving - walking around the house and up and down stairs, which definitely helped intensify the contractions, but I was really tired by this stage - having been ill the day before, and just wanted to lie down.
Barbara left at about 2.30am - the Gas and Air during my second labour (first home birth) had run out, and I was worried about this happening again. Barbara went to the hospital to collect a couple of extra canisters.
After she'd left, things did begin to hot up and the contractions were becoming harder to deal with. I had my TENS on and it did help, but I was finding the wires irritating. This surprised me, as I LOVED the TENS during my second labour. We called Barbara back at about 4.00am as I felt I really needed the G&A by then. So, I had my four canisters of G&A and felt happier, but Barbara warned me that I shouldn't go overboard and I should try to ration it, in case it ran out. This was ominous - it obviously meant that she thought I'd be labouring for a long time yet. This was pretty disheartening as I was SO exhausted. As it happened, the G&A didn't really do much for me during this labour, which again surprised me as I had loved it so much during my second labour. The two forms of pain relief that I had relied on so much last time, were pretty ineffective this time around!
It was at this point that I thought I had the choice either to go into hospital for an epidural, or to knuckle down and get on with it. I consciously decided that I needed to "let myself go", as I think I'd been holding back a bit before - thinking I could rely on the pain relief to get me through. I started to shout and bellow through the contractions, surprised myself that it actually worked! I remember saying to Barbara, "I'm going to shout a lot from now on, because it's working" and she said "fine, shout and bellow away!" - I think if I'd been in the hospital I would have felt too inhibited to do this, and would have definitely asked for an epidural.
So, there I was, kneeling on all fours on the living room floor (on top of a waterproof sheet and old duvet) shouting my head off. I carried on like this for a while, leaning on DH's lap to rest in between contractions, and I could feel the pressure building up and the need to bear down. I was using the G&A a bit, but it was more of a distraction than anything. It was the loud shouting that was really getting me through. Sips of water, cold wet flannel, T-shirt off - kneeling there in just my bra (what a mental image!). It was really hard work, and I didn't feel like much progress was being made - why wouldn't my waters break?? At 6.00am, Barbara said she was going off shift at 7.00am and would I like her to break the waters to see if we could get the baby out before then, otherwise labour could go on for several more hours. I was completely knackered and said yes please! She tried with her fingers, and said "wow, this membrane is really tough!" so used the hook thingy, and out it all came with a gush. Barbara called the second midwife at this point and asked her to come over within the hour, which she did (after getting the wrong house and waking my neighbours up, oops!)
Things really did hot up then. All a complete blur - I remember still shouting, it being really hard work, Barbara reminding me that I needed to stop tensing up, relax and "open up", which once she'd said that I thought "oh yeah!" and it worked - he started to descend. An embarrassing moment (although not at the time) when I did a big poo, which Barbara discreetly disposed of (thanks Barbara) - and eventually his head crowned, and I felt the "ring of fire". I was kneeling over the sofa on my DH's lap, and panted through this bit, as they unwrapped the cord from around his neck, and I was thinking "thank god it's nearly over" and then out he was and I literally collapsed and couldn't move. Matthew Grant arrived at 7.05am on 5th March, weighing in at 7lb 15oz. They gave me the injection to speed up delivery of the placenta and had to haul me over onto my bum to deliver it. Barbara said the placenta was grainy and over cooked, although he was officially only a few days late. No tears or grazes.
This was by far my hardest labour - not my longest, but the one I had to work the hardest at, and was the most painful. It's also taken me longer to recover physically. I felt like I'd run 6 marathons, couldn't get out of bed for a week, and am only now feeling strong enough to be out and about.