| Not 'new' but here's my story
Not a new arrival as such but I'm quite pleased with my birth story so thought I'd share. I'd planned a homebirth from the beginning.
I went to bed as normal just before midnight on 28th March, after an uneventual day with no signs of baby coming, and almost immediately had to get up to go to the loo. When I got back into bed I realised I was leaking and was convinced I was wetting myself. After about 3 more trips to and from the bathroom I realised it might be my waters so put on a pad. Suddenly I had a contraction! I shouted to OH that I had a pain and it might be starting. As soon as the pain finished I tried to go back to bed to get a bit of sleep, but before I could even get into bed I had another contraction. I told OH to check the time every time I shouted, and after about half hour he could predict a few seconds before the pain came. We decided it was time to phone the delivery suite, especially as I checked my pad and my waters were definitely still trickling.
Because I had planned a homebirth, the delivery suite said they’d call the community midwife and she’d come out to do an initial assessment. Then 10 minutes later they called back to say they couldn’t get hold of a midwife so I’d have to go into hospital to get checked. I really didn’t want to go in, as I thought they’d probably end up keeping me in and I desperately wanted to have baby at home. I had to put a few last minute bits and pieces in my hospital bag, and as we were about to leave the house the phone rang again and we were told they’d managed to wake up a different midwife to the one on call and she would be out to us soon.
The midwife arrived just after 1am, my contractions were now really painful and coming every 2 minutes or so. The midwife was a bit shocked, she had been expecting to assess me then go home for a few hours. She examined me and I was already 6-7cm dilated and ‘very stretchy’! At this point she got on the phone to try to get a second midwife out in a hurry (They ended up waking up about 5 people before they found someone who could come). I called my mum, who came over as well.
The midwife said it could still be a few hours, and as I had planned on a water birth my OH cleared space in the living room for the pool and I moved into our much smaller spare room (we’re in a bungalow so fortunately no stairs) while mum and OH started to inflate the pool.
The second midwife arrived (in her pyjamas & slippers!) with gas & air, which I tried for a couple of puffs but just made me a bit light-headed and really thirsty. I ended up just using the mouthpiece to bite on. I suddenly got a huge sensation that I needed to push, we realised there was no way the pool was going to be up in time let alone filled so that was abandoned and I ended up leaning on my birth ball on my knees. I pushed a couple of times and the midwife said she could see baby’s head with each push. OH was just about to have a peek when there was a huge gush and baby flew out onto the floor! The midwives didn’t even have time to catch him!
I asked OH what the baby was and he just sat there with a huge grin and kept saying ‘it’s a baby’! We finally established that baby was a boy and I managed to turn round and whip off my t-shirt to put him straight on my chest.
He was born at 2:36am on 29th March 2007, one week overdue. I was in labour for just over 2 and a half hours, and had no pain relief! He weighed 8lb 6oz and was 21 ½ inches long.
The midwives had to sit and fill in a load of paperwork before they could go home, but by 5am everyone had left and we all went to bed for the first time as a little family.
It was an incredible experience; I'm actually looking forward to next time! | 
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