It was 2 days before my due date and DH & I had decided to get a babysitter for DD and go out for dinner. I was so over being pregnant, and was super emotional and grumpy.
We went to my fav restaurant and I ate the most I had eaten in weeks! I felt great afterwards, and we got an early night.

I woke in the night to pee (as you do!) and lost some of my plug! I thought woohoo, hopefully I'll start getting some pains soon. I felt a few light pains thru the night, but nothing major. When I got up at 5:30am I lost more plug! I had a shower and checked my cervix - it was still mostly closed - but soft, and I could feel a head up there!

I told DH that he should go to work and that I would update him. At about 8am I was having a few niggles, but nothing regular. I had a few sniffs of my clary sage oil, but didn't want to use it to massage until I was having proper contractions. Mum & Dad came over to help me with DD, and by 10am I told Mum I thought I might have baby today!

We started timing contractions and they were coming every 5mins for about a minute, but they weren't super painful. I called DH & said he would have to leave work early, but not just yet. Lucky he arrived home at 11.20am anyway, because by then I had decided to ring the midwife and let her know things had started. She said to wait till the contractions were about 3mins apart, and to call her back. I was feeling great at this stage, lying on the couch with a heat pack, and just breathing through the contractions. I thought I was in for a long day.

By 12pm things were getting painful but I was too busy trying to put DD down for her day sleep. I have no idea why I was so set on getting her to sleep, but things were really speeding up and by the time I realised what was happening my waters had broken on the couch and I told DH there was no way I was moving! I was on all fours and groaning (or wailing!!) through the contractions (which was really strange - with DD I never made any noise, and barely even spoke through my 9hr labour!) DH rang the midwife again and she said to ring an ambulance.

The ambulance arrived at 1pm, and despite my protests they managed to get me on the stretcher and into the ambulance. All I remember thinking was how dare they move me! How dare they put me on my back! I guess they were trying to slow things down so we could get to the hospital. I was already feeling the urge to push, and the contractions were so close together I thought I was going to have bub then and there.

We got to the hospital and our midwife met us at the door and she gave me a quick internal (almost felt like she was just going to pull bub out!) and said there was still a little bit of cervix there and to breathe through the contractions till we got to the birthing room. We got into our room at 1:35pm and they had a birth ball & mats set up on the floor for me. ?Youre right to push now? says my midwife. Thank goodness - my body was pushing all on its own now anyway, and my contractions had started to slow a bit. It was great because I was able to rest a bit inbetween them, and relax finally! The two midwives were wonderful, very encouraging, and softly spoken. As the head was crowning I looked in the mirror - all I could see was a matt of dark brown hair! It was such a surprise as DD has very blonde hair. At 2pm Evangeline Ruby Hope came into the world and I lifted her onto my chest. She had so much vernix on her I almost couldn?t hold her! We waited for the cord to stop pulsating before DH cut it, and I had a natural third stage. My placenta only took about 15minutes and everything was great! I had a second degree tear, but no stitches. She had her first feed and we all had a cuddle together.

We went home the next day. Oh, and just so you know ? we had only just bought a new couch the day before, so it didn?t even matter my waters had broken on the old one LOL

Thanks for reading my story