Thanks for all the congrats everyone! Leo is asleep for the moment so thought I'd come back to this and tell you all what happened, sort of process it for myself as well.
So when I left you...it was Sunday night, nothing seemed to be happening. I think I dozed off some time after 11:30pm, and around 1:30am woke with really bad contractions that seemed to be closer together (too much agony to time them). DH phoned the hospital and they could hear me crying in the background and said to come in. As we drove to the hospital contractions were 4 minutes apart. We got there around 2:30am.
Got in the room and hooked up to the monitors, and of course the stupid contractions slowed down again. I figured I'd be on my way home, but when the midwife examined me, my waters broke (I will never mistake that for discharge again!). And ta-da, I was 4cm dilated, so officially 'active'! They were having some trouble picking up his heartbeat, so the first hurdle was getting a monitor attached to his scalp. Two people tried and couldn't do it, then the registrar I'd seen in antenatal clinic came in to have a go and was able to do it.
I'd held off for a while on drugs, but requested the gas and air after being there for about an hour. True what my friend said, it doesn't take the pain away, but you just don't care! Apparently I said loads of funny things (may have to get DH back on to tell you), but the one I remember was telling everyone that the gas & air made me 'sound like a transexual' (voice sounded deeper to me, but not to anyone else). DH asked if he should call me Dave, and I told him 'no, Davina, thank you'.
So on I laboured, told I was doing well, having contractions every 2-3 minutes, but so off my head on gas & air that it didn't matter. At some point I asked for the diamorphine jab as the pain was getting more than I could deal with. It gets a bit mixed up for me here as far as the timeline, was a bit loopy. They had to readjust the scalp electrode for Leo, and as the registrar was doing it, my hindwaters completely exploded over her and a poor midwife. I could hear water running over the floor and thought someone had spilled a bucket! DH said it was quite comical, and the registrar was laughing hysterically. I offered her some of my paper knickers, which she graciously declined.
At about 7:30ish, it was time for an exam, and guess what, I was STILL only 4-5cm! I let out a string of expletives, ending with 'Wankstain!', a word I am sure I didn't know until mumsnet . Pain getting worse, and I gave in and asked for an epidural. That happened fairly quickly, and I remember my teeth kept chattering from the diamorphine. After the epidural things got worse. Leo's heart rate dropped a bunch and there seemed to be lots of people running in and out and trying to do things and examine me. They took blood samples from the top of his head, and said the results indicated they'd have to do the same again in an hour to make sure he was still ok.
Then a consultant came in and talked to us about whether I wanted to continue labouring. Leo's head wasn't engaged properly, but the top of it was getting squeezed and building up pressure on the top of it. The blood results weren't indicating a problem yet, but weren't as good as they could be. My cervix wasn't softening and shortening the way it should have been either, and I wasn't getting anywhere as far as dilating, despite the painful contractions. The consultant was lovely and said if I wanted to carry on for a bit and see what happened, I could, but that I could also opt to have a CS now. DH and I talked, and decided to go for the CS and not put Leo in any more distress.
Once I'd decided I could tell they were all really relieved I'd made that choice. Everything went very fast after that and I was in theatre by 11am. I was so tired from not having really slept for 2 nights and having the drugs, I was sure I was going to snore on the operating table. DH came in looking very handsome in his scrubs (blue is definitely his colour).
At 11:16 Leo was born, but was having trouble breathing. I was still quite out of it, and just remember seeing how scared DH looked. It seemed like an eternity that they worked on him, but it was probably only a matter of 5-10 minutes. Then they gave him to DH and I finally got to see him. They were very quick sewing me up, then I was in recovery and had skin to skin time for the next few hours while in recovery and being taken to the ward. Leo even fed a bit in recovery! He weighed 8lbs 6oz and has a full head of dark hair and a gorgeous little face.
And speaking of, he's due a feed now. Am desperately in love with the little man, as is DH.