Right, I am on my phone so apologies in advance for any mistakes. Do you want to hear my birth story? 
So on Saturday evening at about 7 my waters went in a big rush (was on the loo anyway thank goodness!) and we called Triage and went in to get checked as I wasn't having contractions. They sent us home with instructions to take temperature etc and said if nothing happened to call on Monday morning at 8 to arrange a time to go in for induction. Contractions started that night but were pretty mild, picked up on Sunday and by Sunday night were every 3 mins and strong. I did my hypno-breathing a lot which was really useful, and DH gave me long massages which were great. I rang the hospital at about 2am and we went in. They didn't want to examine me due to the risk of infection as it had been a while since my waters went, but the midwife said my contractions weren't 'real' 
and that I would definitely need to be induced. I really didn't want to be so asked for some more time to see if they would get stronger. At about 10am on Monday she examined me and said I was only 3cm dilated and needed inducing asap. I said no and she got really stroppy-'Well of course I'm ONLY a professional, just ignore me...' silly cow. I asked for more time and she eventually gave up. At about 3pm they moved us to a labour room and we moved to a new midwife too, who was SO lovely and supportive. We eventually agreed at about 5pm as a second exam showed I was still only 3cm dilated, despite the contractions being v intense all day. We really agonised about it as I knew it would totally change the birth from what we wanted, and we'd already had to give up our plan for a water birth due to the waters going so early. But in the end the risk of infection was too high by that point (they like to induce at 24-36 hours and we were almost at 48) so we agreed. I remembered reading that induced labours could be much harder to handle due to the speed of the contractions, so after more soul searching I also agreed to an epidural. This was the 3rd big thing that was way off birth plan!
The woman who did our epidural didn't seem very confident, and took 3 goes as the first 2 times she hit bone, which was excruciating. Eventually they got a more senior anaesthetist in to supervise. Then they started the drip (which lovely midwife quietly pointed out was painful because it was wrongly positioned-by the same woman who attempted the epidural-in retrospect I think she was a student). It was weird feeling my body contracting but it not being painful, and although it was an ordeal getting it in, I have to say it was nice to not be in pain anymore.
However, the epidural wasn't done properly and by the time I was near the end it wasn't working at all anymore. I didn't really realise it at the time as the midwife said it was normal to feel pressure, but retrospectively it was clearly far more painful than it should have been given the amount of drugs in my body. I ended up needing gas and air-so much more effective than the epidural!!
I had wanted to breathe the baby out but with the not-right-epidural I was totally out of it and had to push. Luckily this was not as painful as I thought it would be as I was totally in the zone. It was a bizarre combination of a hypno-birth and a very drugged one.
Right at the end the midwife told DH to hit a button and suddenly the room was full of people-about 12 in total. I remember very little but DH said it was terrifying to watch. I was dimly aware of people holding my legs down and back and DH said someone basically punched me in the stomach, then DD was born, very floppy, and thrown onto a resuscitating table. Thank God she was fine in about 2 minutes, though DH was freaking out because even once it was apparent she was alive they kept talking about possible broken bones. Anyway, she was fine
Once everyone had left the midwife brought her over and we had a cuddle-DH whipped his top off too so he could join in much to her amusement!-and got our breath back. The midwife explained she had been stuck at the shoulders (dystocia I think it's called) and that was why they'd had to manipulate (punch!) my stomach to move her from the outside, and why they'd worried they'd broken her arms. A senior midwife came in and apologised and said they'd make sure they learned from the experience etc, but I really don't think they did anything wrong (apart from the epidural!) and to be honest was just so grateful the emergency procedure kicked in so quickly and effectively. I think it was far more traumatising for DH than me because he had to watch. Interestingly, despite such a horrid entrance to the world, Eloise was totally chilled out-and still is-and I really think that although absolutely nothing went according to plan, she is a Hypnobirthing baby at heart.
We've really struggled with breast feeding and I got totally fed up at hospital being manhandled by different people while she didn't feed, which was v stressful. We eventually came home yesterday and have been doing a combination of hand expressing, tiny, tiny suckles at the breast and formula top ups. I always thought I would breast feed and am finding it a bit upsetting that it's not working as I'd expected, but we're persevering for now and fingers crossed it will get better. It is very, very nice to be home, and Eloise is just gorgeous and relaxed and amazing we're so in love with her it's unreal.
I really think that things happen for a reason and if our original birth plan had worked it might have been disastrous. We'd contemplated a home birth, wanted a water birth, wanted no induction etc etc, but when push comes to shove at the moment of her birth we were in exactly the right place with the right people. The midwife said that we were also lucky she was an average size (7lbs 14ozs) because if she'd been much bigger I'd have needed an emergency caesarean at the end and we might not have got there quickly enough.
I had a second degree tear (so close to third but not thank God) and I am very sore but healing nicely I think.
We are very happy and very blessed and enjoying our gorgeous baby girl very, very much