So just after baby has arrived..

[highlove]

I'm just thinking about my birth plan (which I get has to be totally flexible, so it's just my 'ideal world'). I'm wondering what the options are/what other people did immediately after baby arrived - ideally I want skin to skin straight away, but if so when is baby weighed, checked, eyc? Can you try for first BF before weighing and checking? And what does that mean for third stage - is it better to have the injection and get it over or to do it naturally? So in a nutshell, what did the first 30-60 mins look like, or what would you have liked them to be like? (And I recognise I may not have the luxury of this, but best to know what I want ideally..)

I had a birth plan and it ended up unused! I wanted a water birth, but I was dilating so quickly that my contractions were so intensely painful I just wanted an epidural - 47 minutes to get from 4cm to 10.
However they didn't realise I was fully dilated until I was getting the urge to push (was still on the antenatal ward at this point) and they rushed me through to delivery, where baby arrived 10 minutes later. I didn't have time to take my top off for skin to skin, I'd had a pethidine injection an hour earlier too so I was incredibly sleepy and out of it.
I had a second degree tear so I fed DS for the first time after they stitched me up and not having immediate skin to skin hasn't done either of us any harm - he latched on great as soon as we tried it and a week on we've had no problems feeding (touch wood). DP got to cut the cord and DS was given to me before he was weighed and I got to cuddle him while the placenta was delivered (had the injection for this) and for a further 15 minutes before they stitched me up, then they left us in the delivery room for about 4 hours while I had a bath in a lovely big bath tub while DP cuddled DS, and we got transferred to the ward at 11 pm. DP went home and I had a lovely sleep next to my gorgeous new baby.
Overall my birth experience was brilliant even if it didn't go 'to plan' at all, and I loved it.
I think it's good to have an idea of what you want in mind - just don't panic or be upset if it's not going to plan. I was told on the Monday at my 38 week appointment that DS was still far too high that he wouldn't be coming anytime before my due date - my waters went at 10 am the next morning and he was born at 7 pm that night :) babies are unpredictable, you just have to go with it!

Notso
Paramedic kit obviously varys by trust.
I have very clear memories of the paramedics discussing if they were allowed to instigate a medically managed third stage when there was no medical need, and them even getting out a set of guidelines from a pocket, with me saying it was OK, just leave the cord unclamped (they weren't happy with this), and let the placenta come out on its own. It only took about 10 mins tho (but it was also a very short labour)