thanks everyone, here's a quick birth story:
After a ridiculously tearful weekend I had another sweep on monday, this time my midwife was really really rough (at my request) and very thorough. I started getting twinges straight away, but because I'd been quietly contracting away for the last few weeks I ignored them, and by the afternoon they slowed down. We put DS to bed at about 8 and sat down to watch a movie - I lasted all of 10 minutes before falling asleep on the sofa, and got woken at about 11pm by a contraction. about ten minutes later I had another, and then again another about 10 more minutes later. By midnight I thought I'd ask DH to put up the pool, if this was going to die down again, at least the pool would be up. He thought there was no point and carried on ignoring me looking at pictures, so I put it up myself.
At 1 am I thought that it didn't feel like it was stopping, even though the contractions hadn't actually changed, and called the MLU. The on-call midwife was actually the matron that evening and she had another lady there to be checked, so she was going to call me back at 2 to see how I was.
DH finally got his arse in gear took notice and started filling the pool, intending to stop about half way should things stop again, so we could just top it up with hot water next time.
The midwife called me back at 2 and because nothing had changed, she said she'd discharge the lady from the unit and told me to go to bed or call her if anything changed. About 15 minutes later I felt a gush and expecting to see amniotic fluid I was a bit concerned to see it was actually fresh, bright red blood, so I phoned again, and she said she'd be round in about an hour to check me over - whether this was labour or not didn't matter so much as making sure the blood was nothing to worry about.
At 3.15 I decided I would like a bath, but all the hot water was going to the pool, so I decided I would just get in there. Contractions were about every 5 minutes again, and I had a feeling that this was heading for real established labour, but just chilled out, waiting in the pool for the midwife and the student who was on call for me. From here on I didn't really take note of contractions.
DS chose this point to wake up and not want to go back to bed, so he snuggled up on the sofa with DH and watched DVDs.
The midwife and student arrived at about 3.30, and you could tell the midwife wasn't convinced I was labouring, asked me how many contractions I was having, but I couldn't tell her, so she got the student to time them.
She got me out of the pool to check the baby and bleeding, told me it was nothing to worry about and to just carry on with whatever I found comfortable.
I got back in the pool and thought I'd have to at least give the student a little sign every time I had a contraction, so she could do what the midwife asked her to do. I overheard the student telling the midwife that I was having 5 contractions in 10 minutes at about 4 am, and the midwife saying "oh, she's in labour afterall then. just very relaxed, let's start notes".
After that, I spent most of the time just floating and breathing, watching Ratatouille with one eye and sort of having half-conversations with the student.
At 5 the contractions started being a bit more noticeable. The midwife asked me if they had changed at all. I said they had, she asked me how and what they felt like.. I replied that they felt more intense and uncomfortable, and that a normal person might find them painful. "you'd never be able to tell.. and you're not a normal person, right? and they aren't contractions, they are rushes." she grinned at me, checking to see if I got the reference to my Ina May Gaskin book she spotted upstairs.
After that, I calmly told her I was going to be sick, puked my guts up in a bowl (aahh, the relief!), and with the next contraction realised that my body was involuntarily pushing. she noticed, too, so she said "I'd better phone MW2" and went in the kitchen. The student was with me for the next contraction and I felt the baby move down and said to her "You might want to get MW1 back in..."
Queue a lot of scrambling around, MW1 passing the phone to my DH to give MW2 instructions to our house, opening birth packs, getting gloves on. I pushed the head out just before 6am, with the waters still around it, and the rest of the body just after 6, the sac bursting on the way out. I brought the baby to the surface and he just opened his eyes and calmly looked at me. (I didn't check on the sex at this point).
About 2 minutes later the MW1 was worried because there was a lot of blood in the pool and I'd gone a bit pale, so she asked if I'd be ok to get out. I stood up and the placenta just fell out, so that was why I had been bleeding.
They got me comfortable on the bed, DH asked me "have you checked what it is yet?", so we looked and found it was a boy, which surprised him, because the sonographer had told him it was a girl.
I heard a knocking on the door and MW2 saying "Is everything ready for the baby?" and MW1 replying "We've had a baby AND a placenta". :o
Because I felt like someone had taken a sledge hammer to my lady bits repeatedly (muscles were stupidly tense and I couldn't relax them, somehow), they wanted to move me to check for tears. As I moved, what seemed like a fountain of blood squirted all over the bed, but it was just pooling from how I'd been lying. A quick look revealed no external or major tears, and after some co-codamol a more thorough check revealed no internal cuts anyway, all there was was a tiny labial graze.
The little man was measured and weighed (51cms, 3.8kgs, much to the disbelief of the midwives, and a head of 37cms!)
By 7.30 all the mess was cleaned up and we were left to it :)
and that turned out a bit more than just a short story, sorry 
well done if you've managed to read it all.
will do a proper namecheck soon.
now, where is that postgrads room?