Well, ds1 and 2 are both asleep so I can finally post my birth story!
As you know, I was having contractions on the Wednesday night, they were centred mainly in my lower back which felt strange. With ds1 they were in the same place as period pains, at the front, low down. I could also feel pressure from the baby's head pressing down like I needed to go to the loo.
I got onto my hands and knees and leaned over the seat of a chair to ease the back pain while dh took a very sleepy ds1 who had to be woken up and got out of his cot to my mum's.
While he was gone, in between contractions, I checked everything was in mine and the baby's hospital bags, took some paracetamol and paced around!
When he arrived back, we phoned the hospital and waited at home for a while longer, but the contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart and getting pretty bad, so we set off. I was 3cm dilated when we arrived, and stayed in my room pacing about while dh rubbed my lower back every time I had a contraction. I tried sitting down after a while but the contractions slowed right down every time I sat down, and I wanted things to happen as quickly as possible, so I carried on walking around. The MW ran me a very large, warm bath, which helped ease the pain immensely, but the contractions slowed right down again to about every 10 minutes, I stayed in for about an hour and a half, by which time I was 6cm.
I then had some pethidine and lay on my side on the bed resting for a while, but things were slowing down and the baby's heartbeat dropped quite low, so the MW said she thought it best to break my waters and get things moving again (my waters never broke on their own with ds1, they had to be broken when I was 10cm).
She really struggled to break them while I writhed about on the bed having a contraction while she was doing it! When they did break they were bloodstained, she went off to get advice from the Doctor, who said just to monitor the baby continuously for the rest of the labour. This meant having to spend the rest of my labour confined to the bed sitting up, wouldn't recommend it, but it obviously has to be done sometimes to make sure the baby is ok.
Anyway, after a very painful and uncomfortable half an hour clinging to the gas and air nozzle like a comforter, I could feel the pressure that had been apparent throughout my labour get stronger, and told the MW I felt like I needed to push.
"You just do whatever your body is telling you" she said, hardly looking up from my notes.
So I did. A few seconds later, she came over and lifted the sheet to look what was going on down there...
"oh my god, the baby's head's there!!!"
She shouted at dh to press the button to call someone in to help and told me to just pant, and another MW came rushing in.
Ds2 was born about a second later, obviously in a rush to get into the world after his late arrival!
My beautiful boy cried straight away for a second or two before he was placed on my tummy for a cuddle.
I was just in shock at the speed in which he came out! And his white-blonde hair, ds1's was black when he was born, and I had been expecting the same, even though I was blonde at birth!
The MW's commented on his beautifully shaped head, it was perfectly rounded and they said it was like a c-section baby's, not elongated or anything like that. Probably due to the extremely short time he was in the birth canal!
And also, although I had a 1st degree tear and a 'labial graze', amazingly I didn't feel very sore at all, not like with ds1 where I felt like I couldn't sit down.
So that's it! No more posting on this thread for me!
Good luck to everyone still left!