shooting - my birth story is only unpleasant because of my back problems and a resources issue at the hospital (a really healthy dose of bad luck/poor timing)....
So, as I said, my waters went at 10pm on the Saturday evening. Not in a big gush, but unmistakable flow/leakage. Went to bed, padded up to absorb any more and with a hot water bottle for lower back ache. I slept until about 4am, when the ache became unpleasant and I needed paracetemol. And dozed until 8/9am.
The first interesting thing about the Sunday was that we had booked my pregnancy yoga instructor to visit us to hold a 'birth rehearsal' session (looking at positions and breathing techniques with me and DH) - something we had arranged weeks ago!
When she arrived, I did warn her that things were kind of happening but not, and she was happy to run the session. After an hour, my back ache suddenly worsened, coming in waves (now I understand these were contractions, just felt in my back because of Al's position) and as we reached the end of the session, I suddenly had more gushing of waters! Talk about timing.
I called triage to let them know, (and posted in here!) while DH did an emergency shopping run for stuff I hadn't got around to getting. Then things began in earnest - still all in my back. I was using TENS, which helped, tried a bath, which didn't.
A midwife visited after 5pm and told me I was 3cm and identified that Al was back-to-back. It was at that point she told us that a home birth was pretty much an impossibility, as I would need to deliver within 4hrs to beat the 24hrs deadline after waters breaking.
I had no problem letting go of my home birth plan - the midwives still hadn't got around to arranging my delivery of gas and air and I already knew, with the position complication, that I would need more pain relief than paracetemol alone.
We went in at 8pm, I had only progressed to 4cm and we were left in a curtained corridor in triage to await a delivery suite room to become available.
The problem was that triage had no supply of gas and air, no anesthetist could visit (they could only work on delivery) so all I was offered was codeine.
In the meantime, a screamer had arrived in the next corridor. She was less advanced than me, but howling. Now, I don't wish to judge, though it was difficult at the time, but her screaming magic-ed up some gas and air for her use and she queue jumped in to delivery, despite being less dilated. Bitter? Moi?
After she left, I was given her gas and air canister. It had two contractions worth of gas left 
and a replacement took a further hour to arrive (at midnight).
So, I was technically labouring in a corridor with just paracetemol and codeine to help at 8cm by this time. There were tears. My back was not coping with the strain and every bit of my old injury felt like it was being torn apart.
When the gas arrived, I practically drank it down, with the inevitable result - the vomit-phobic was spectacularly sick.
At this point, DH really began to kick off with staff and the poor triage team could only agree it was wrong