I woke up at about 6am on Saturday with really strong contractions, which were about 7 mins apart. The midwife at my appointment the day before had said not to come in until they were at least down to 4mins apart, because there is a set amount of time you are allowed to labour without progress in the birth centre, before they have to pass you on to the normal suites for intervention.

At 7:30, the pain was so bad, I had to get up and get in the bath. Still five mins apart, and by that point, I didn't care if things slowed down, as long as the pain went away. (Labouring in the bath can slow things down if you aren't dilated to a certain point, but past that it can actually speed things up: not that I knew that last bit at the time)

THe water didn't get rid of the pain like it had the day before, and during the last weeks of pregnancy, but it did reduce it to incredibly painful, instead of unbearably excruitiating. I kept timing the contractions until about nine am, when I was so relaxed by the water I sort of went into a daze and forgot.

It would have been about 10am ish when I felt the urge to poo. There was no way I was going to be getting out of the bath, so, (and I know this is kinda gross, but I didn't care at the time) I just pushed in the bath. I figured I could scoop it out and flush it later. The contractions were still fierce at this stage.

After about 40mins of pushing trying to poo, I suddenly realised, that I couldn''t not push, and the thought came to me that this might be it.
I felt between my legs as the next one came, and to my shock, I could feel the head poking through slightly! I remember thinking, That's not right, you get back in there! Which he did after the contraction ended. I thought that as soon as I''d got my breath back, I'd get out of the bath, and get Jonathan to call the ambulance. But I'd only just leant back again after it was over, and the next contraction came! I screamed out to J to call the ambulance because we weren't going to make it to hospital, his head was showing!

He rang 000, and I heard him saying to the girl "she's a first time mother" and I thought, Great, they probably think I've got hours to go still, and I knew I didn't. He knew I had no idea how far apart the contractions were by that stage, so he had to come in and time them. They were 2mins apart, and after the second one, Brandon's head was about an inch out. He went and told the girl the time, and I screamed out to him that they'd better hurry up, he was crowning.

So they told J to get me out of the bath, which he thought was a bad idea, but said he see if I could. I said I could move, but I was thinking that every time I'd changed positions in the last two days, I'd had a contraction. Sure enough, I rolled onto my hands and knees I said to J, I can't move here comes another one. I pushed and screamed "he's coming" and with that, little Brandon Codi slid into the world. Dad caught him before he hit the water (although caught is the wrong word, because Jonathan had Brandon's head in his hand as soon as it was out, and J never let go) and then passed our son onto me while he went back to the phone. The girl told him to keep the two of us warm while the ambulance arrived, which it did 5 mins later.

Brandon weighed 3280gms, and was 54cm long, with a head circumference of 34cm (and it felt it too! )

Looking down at him in my arms now, I still can't believe that anything this beautiful could come out of me! I'm soooo proud of Jonathan you can't believe! He says he just did what anyone else would have done, but I guarentee at least one of my BILs would have fainted!

So I got my water birth, without drugs. All in all, it was a lot less painful than I expected, except for the final stage contractions (before I got into the bath) which were a lot worse than I thought would be. I had no tearing, and only slight grazes (probably from someone's very sharp fingernails on the way out!) outside. I did get a blood blister higher up though, and that is quite painful. Makes it hard to sit in most positions. (which is why it's taken a super addict like me two days at home to post this! )

I guess we should have known that my son's birth would be anything but normal!