Haven't posted on here, but lurked and used it greatefully for advice on researching my VBAC which I had a couple of weeks ago, and wanted to share how it all went. Labour seemed to kick off in the morning, 4 hours on contractions getting stronger and more frequent, but stalled utterly (due toi stress?) after got call from creche saying dd had had a playground accident and was being taken to the doctors. Dh went and joined them, got dd home, banged up nose/front lip, on alert for suspected concussion and very woebegone. Once I'd seen she was bascially ok, labour started again, and I spent the first few hours alone in bedroom as dh was looking after a still upset dd until she was feeling cheery enough to go happily with our neighbour. Not an ideal start but things went very smoothly from there, once I was convinced things were for real this time and not going to stop again we called the doala, and spent the next 3 or so hours at home, until contractions we going every 3 minutes or so, when we transferred to the hospital. The dynamic at the hospital was interesting - the midwife, who was quite young was trying to insist on " protocol" and internal monitoring etc, while the much older nurse was really supportive in my staying upright and mobile - got the midwife to agree we should at least try external monitoring and only use internal if they couldn't get a good reading that way, said " nonsense" when the midwife said I had to at least lie down to have the monitor put on, told me to get comfortable standing/learning agiainst the bed and fitted the monitor, and later when I wanted a shower went directly to the gynacologist with the readings and confirmed there was no need to stay wired up and I could do so. Was only 3cm when I went in, which disapointed me slightly as the contractions were really close and strong, but 90(very intense and painful) minutes later, just when I was starting to think the whole epidural-free birth idea was insanity, both the nurse and doala looked at me and said I was obviously feeling the urge to push, (although I can't say I recognised it as such). Midwives examined me again, and said I was fully dilated, stayed standing to push learning on the bed until they got worried becasue the babies heartrate spiked and some meuconium also then showed, at which point the gynocologist asked me to get on the bed, and said she was going to do an episiotomy to get the baby out quickly - she came a couple of minutes later, it was an amazing moment - I felt euphoric, compared to my other birth when on delivery all I felt was utterly drained, and releived it was over and the baby was healthy. In terms of things that I think helped, I think having the doala, and also a birth plan that stated what I wanted were vital, the doala provided so much support, and the plan meant that the nurse, who was fanstatic, knew what I wanted and could help get it for me, at a time when I really couldn't speak for myself as the contractions were so strong. All in all I was in hospital for only six hours, leaving with a healthy baby, which was all I could have ever asked for!