OK - dd2 sleeping, dd1 out with childminder (we're so knackered we thought it was a good idea!) dp cooking lunch...the gories. I'll give the account first, conclusions later.
As noted below, waters broke completely without warning at about 2pm - I was on the phone to a friend - sudden pop and flood. I phoned the hospital to contact the community team but got a drongo who tried to insist that as I wasn't contracting yet I should go in. I resisted - and found out subsequently she was completely out of order for doing this (she also tried to claim no-one from my particular team was on call that afternoon). By the time she called back to say someone would be coming round I was contracting slightly anyway. Rang dp and got him home too.
Midwives arrived - one newishly qualified but quite lovely, another I'd met once before, who'd delivered 2 babies of a friend, and who was completely wonderful and I'd secretly been hoping for anyway. They checked me and said to ring when the contractions got more regular and heavier - or if I was worried anyway. I was dreading another looooong labour, as you know, but we rang them back at about 7pm, by which time everything was getting significantly more painful. I tried various positions, but tbh the only thing that really made a difference was a hot-water-bottle wedged into the small of my back (which was hurting like f*ck with every contraction). They got here at 7.30ish, and were fab at talking me through and calming me down; I asked for gas and air and I think that made a difference too, not least because it meant I had to take deep deep breaths each time. Told me I was 5cm (hurrah!) and that dp should start filling the birth pool which was by this time inflated and standing rather bizarrely in the middle of our book-lined front room.
Things escalated from there and, quite honestly, I seriously wondered if I'd make it. I was thinking 'this is 5cm, what the hell will it be like at 10 cm?'. It was only the thought that the water HAD to make a difference that really kept me from saying HOSPITAL NOW!!! I also started squirming around trying not to push (or rather trying not to crap on the sofa), despite the midwife shouting 'no, focus, come on, don't'. They checked me again at 8.30 - 8cm - my god - and told me to get in the pool if I wanted any use out of it; I staggered across, onto dd1's little stool (thank you whoever suggested that on mumsnet as a pool accessory!) and into the water; brief pause; hell of a contraction; 'Don't push!'; reached down and shouted, idiotically, 'something's coming' (I honestly thought I was doing the world's most massive crap); they wedged the stool under me so I was pushing down onto it; one push; another with the head coming out; a third and the whole baby shot into the water. And there I was, up to my tits in water in my front room, having given birth.
I delivered the placenta with injection, in the end, as I couldn't push it out and honestly wasn't bothered. I also have a nasty tear, second-degree, into muscle. But staggering upstairs, and then into bed (and then into the bath when dp pointed out I was absolutely filthy and smelly), was amazing. Quite amazing.
Conclusions? Good midwives make all the difference. So does a hot water bottle. And I think a pool is really worth investing in - I was in it for EIGHT MINUTES, total, but my god what eight minutes they were. And a relatively short labour, for me, made it much more endurable. But I am so, so glad I did it; and so, in the end, is dp.
Lunch is ready, so must go and eat, but hope this story's worth reading!