Luke Edward turned up 13 days late on Friday evening.
Those of you who frequent the Pregnancy thread may have seen me wibbling at the prospect of induction - my worst nightmare, was terrified at the idea of forceps, ventouse, horrible pain etc.
Well, turns out wasn't a bit like that. The waters breaking did nothing apart from give me 3 hours of painful cramps but no dilation (was 3cm to start with) so was told it would have to be a syntocinon drip. I got a bit upset at that, but the midwife suggested I have an epidural sited before beginning the drip.
Drip started at 2pm, I spent most of the afternoon reading Harry Potter and chatting with DH and the wonderful kind midwife who was looking after us, and by 6pm was fully dilated.
Pushed out DS in 40 minutes with support from the original midwife and my community midwife, who were so calm and encouraging. Had a 2nd degree tear so small that I didn't need stitches, and although DS needed oxygen when he popped out (cord round his neck) he's perfect.
Despite being very medicalised, the birth was actually a lovely, calm experience (and this is coming from a childbirth-phobic). I went home the next day.
Realise this is long, but you hear so many negative stories about midwives, the NHS etc that I wanted to share an experience that was nothing but positive. They were absolutely amazing - I get tearful when I think of how well we were looked after.