Well it started saturday morning when I woke up about 9am and discovered I was bleeding. I got out the pregnancy books and checked what I 'should' do and they all said if it is bright red, not mucusy and in a reasonable quantity to ring the hospital - it was so I did. They asked me to come in to check on bub and make sure everything was ok. So I rang kev who was playing golf (well apparently) and got him to come home and we got our stuff together and went to the hospital. Once there they took me to a labour ward and did a trace for 30 minutes. This showed that bub was fine but that I was having contractions every 5minutes that were about 30 seconds or so in length. I could sort of feel these in my back but they were not bad. The midwife decided to call the ob because of the bleeding and he did an internal to say I was 3-4cm. He told me that the bleeding was probably from the placenta and wasn't likley to be a problem but that he wanted me to stay in hospital and see what happened. He offered to break my waters but we elected to see if things would progress on their own. So Kev and I were taken to a ward room and spent the rest of the day waiting. The contractions continued at the same pace but go more intense. By mid afternoon they were becoming painful to the point where I needed to breath through them and got kev to massage my back to help alliviate the discomfort. About 10pm they did another trace and the contractions were lasting longer but were not closer together. The midwife gave me some sleeping tablets and panadine and I tried to get some sleep.

Woke up Sunday to - nothing. Everything had stopped. Moved around abit and got sporadic contractions but nothing major. Ob came back to see what was going on and said I could either go home or he could break waters and get things going. We elected to do so as the thought of going home without bub was too much to deal with. So we were taken back to the labour ward and they got out the crochet hook think and he broke my waters. The ob said he would be back about 12pm to check on me and would start the drip then if needed (it was about 11am at the time). He didn't need to, about 3 minutes after that I got my first real contraction and it hurt bad. Didn't help that they kept me on the bed hooked up to a monitor for 30minutes. After this the contractions were so close together we didn't bother timing them as they were almost continuous and very intense. I found the birth ball helped for a while as did bending over and rocking - massage helped a bit but it was hard to find the right spot. We tried the shower which also helped for a time. The major problem I found was I couldn't stop throwing up and eventually the midwife gave me a shot of maxalon which helped. I think about 12pm the pain got so bad I asked her to examine me and when she said I was still 3-4 I opted for an epidural. While we were waiting she gave me gas, which was the most spinny experience of my life. It helped but made me feel very disorientated. She also made me lie on my left side on the bed. The anethatist arrived and put the epidural in, tested it and it worked in the sense that I could no longer feel the pain in my back and stomach but had an intense sensation of pressure in my bum. The midwife checked me and sure enough after about 5minutes of pain relief it was time to push. So they turned the epidural off and we started to push. I think about 10min or so in she said she was going to give us 2 more contractions then call the dr but things were happening so quickly she decided then and there to do so. According to Kev he arrived quickly and walked in very casually and then realised how close we were and said something like "quick get my stuff". She was crowining at this point and he decided to do an episiotomy (not sure why, forgot to ask as he usually lets you tear if you wanted to which I did) and then I remember some new person (midwife) telling me to pant then push then pant again. Then she was out and on my stomach and Kev was cutting the cord time 1.18pm. The whole time I was pushing I realised I had kept my eyes closed as it was the only way I could stay focused. I never really had time to think about how much it hurt (it did) as all I could think about was "when this is over I get to meet my baby.

Looking back even though the pain was really intense labour only went for about 2.5 hours with 20minutes or so of pushing and she is worth every bit.