Hi all - ok, so first chance to come on here and give the full story (bet LO wakes up before I finish!!) - Long post, sorry!!!
So, as I left it, I was on monitoring and had a scan on the friday where they reported low amniotic fluid although the heartrate trace and fetal movements were showing really good results. Overnight friday, LO (Holly) was moving LOADS and I started to convince myself there was something wrong. In the morning, I thought I may be leaking waters and putting a pad on showed the leak was slightly green so then I assumed the worst which was that there was meconium in the waters. Went to the hospital for prearranged monitoring on Saturday at about 11. They said it wasn't waters and the trace again showed Holly was absolutely fine and that I was in fact having some tightenings. Relief!! However, it got me to thinking maybe now was the time to go for it and that waiting any more was just going to stress me out. So, I agreed to go for an induction and fully intended to negotiate every step so we were all happy. They did an exam and found out I was already 2cm dilated and could go straight to ARM so no hormones. Fab. Had ARM around 3 and was sent off for a walk for a couple of hours. Came back around 4.30 and they said I hadn't progressed at all, still at 2cm. However, I had me a fantastic midwife (who confessed she snuck off to france for one of her pregnancys and went to 43 weeks!) and we agreed to delay Syntocin for another hour or so because I felt labour was coming. She left us to it and came back in around 6 where I was fully in labour (although somewhat in denial and convinced I had a bad case of.....um, I don't know!). She asked if I wanted CFM, I said no, she said fine. Then she asked if I still wanted a waterbirth (?! - I thought I was never going to get that!) and I said yes please. She went off to organise that, came back 10 minutes later to see me ending each contraction with a teeny push (blush). Cue the question "are you doing sneaky pushes?"
me: "Um, yes I think so"
midwife: "should we maybe get your trousers off and have a little look?"
me: "ok"
Trousers off, "oh, I think we might be having a baby"
"F@*k! ok then, thank god!"
Needless to say mucho panting, pushing, screaming and crying later, I gave birth at 7.43 to a little girl. Very intense, very quick, very surprising and very wonderful. So, my advice in hindsight to all or any looking at going overdue - hold on until you feel ready and make it clear to everyone what you really want. I cannot fault the staff at the hospital. They were respectful, helpful, worked with me and got me the labour I wanted. They kept the monitoring to a minimum and kept me informed all the way about what was happening, what concerns they had etc. It really was an amazing experience. Finally, I had a big pph (lost a litre of blood) so they were concerned I may need a drip after all but even that was stemmed with the injection and managed third stage (delayed for Holly to have cord still attached) and everything went well. I'm am so exhausted and feel like I was hit by a train but we're all well and Holly is fighting fit and feeding well.
Congrats to newmomma - have you posted your birthstory? I would love to have a read. Thank you to everyone for commenting, your support really kept me going these last couple of weeks. Sorry for long post!!