Congratulations Stacey!
Sorry there are a few of us feeding all the time. DS is stretching his feeds out a bit since my milk properly came in, but there are still long periods at night where I'm feeding constantly or being used as a human dummy! I've got enormous cracks on both nipples.
DS is sleeping on me now so I thought I'd post my birth story:
The first "sign" of labour happened at 11pm on Sunday night. I'd been sat on the sofa talking to my mum on the phone for about half an hour. When I stood up my back was really sore on the left side, I thought I'd been sitting funny but I could only relieve the pain with hard rubbing. It passed eventually and I got into bed around midnight. I started drifting in and out of sleep around 2am because of a few painful BH, but I'd had that for weeks so thought nothing of that either!
Just before 3am I felt a snapping sensation and knew my membrane had gone. I got up and put on a pad and made myself a huge bowl of cereal. The gradual trickle of water turned into a bit of a flood so I called my MW who was luckily in the birthing centre already. She asked me to come in for monitoring. DS had a good trace but I only had 3 mild contractioms so I was sent home at 4am to get established. The MW said to come back when the contractions were 5 mins apart.
DH called a taxi at the front desk, it took ages and while we were waiting the contractions got more painful and were around 10 mins apart. I was tempted to just go back to the birth centre but I was hoping to see the DCs when they got up. Eventually the cab got us home at 5am and I spent the next 2 hours huffing through contractions every 10 mins until the DCs got up. I was able to tell them the baby's coming and we're off to the hospital when suddenly the contractions ramped up to every 2/3 mins. DH called another cab and I was really vocal on that journey. I could see the driver giving me nervous looks but I was in too much pain to tell him my water had already broken!
I was admitted back into the birthing centre at 7:20am, I was 6cm dilated so got straight into a lovely hot birthing pool and was handed the gas and air. The contractions were very intense and although I tried not to, there was lots of "I can't do this." And "I want an epidural!!" The midwives were lovely and encouraged me to make as much noise as I wanted. At 8:19am DS was born into the water, a little bit shocked by the speed of delivery, so he had some oxygen while I held him in the pool. I honestly thought we might be having a girl, so he was a lovely surprise. I called my mum in the UK before they'd even delivered the placenta. Not long now till she gets to meet him!