Thanks to all on my thread last night. At nine o'clock I had a proper owee contraction, my neighbour took me to the midwife centre and Dh met me there. When I got there I was 5cm dilated and shouting 'ow, it hurts' over and over again. The pools were waiting to be cleaned so I had about an hour on a bed with the entonox, surely the best invention ever, and then I got in the pool which was heavenly. After a couple of hours ("I can't do this" etc etc) I went into the second stage, jsut as the gas and air ran out. I shouted a lot and then stopped shouting so much and the midwives kept lying and telling me I was nearly there when in fact I was doing a poo, but they didn't tell me that. Then I pushed out the head in three contractions while on my knees and the rest in another and my son was born and pushed up between my legs to my chest. I sat in the water for about ten minutes holding him to my chest and then I got out and delivered the placenta without an injection while I tried to breastfeed, but I don't think he got much at all at this stage. Then we went back to my room and basically chilled with lots of skin to skin. After a while I went off to get stitched up (three labial grazes and a small second degree perineal tear) and then I was back in my room. Twelve hours later we are home! He's been feeding a bit, I know he's had some down because he sicked some up. And he's done two glorious green poos.
That's the short version, anyway.