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I woke up at 4.30am on the Thursday morning with pains that were unmistakably contractions, coming at roughly 10 minute intervals but not regular enough to time really. I'd had a few pains the previous night which had gone away as soon as I got up, so I got up again and decided to have a bath. Bad planning - no hot water so put it on and waited a while, with the pains still coming. Woke up DH too and told him I didn't think he'd be off to work that day. Phoned the birth centre for advice - they said to have paracetomel and bath, and to check for baby movement, which I hadn't felt yet that day. Eventually I had my bath, it did nothing to ease the pains, and having still felt no movement by about 7.30am, we decided to go into the birth centre to be checked over. Put on the TENs before we went, and it took my mind off the pain a fair bit.
When we got there they found the heartbeat no problem, and examined me - I was just over 1cm dilated and not quite fully effaced so still very early days. We decided to go for a walk into the nearby town - felt weird wandering around shops having contractions every 5-7 mins, got some weird looks! 2 hours later and back at the birth centre I was 2cm dilated and fully effaced, so we decided to go home and wait it out. I managed to have a bit of a nap in the afternoon in between contractions, and was still coping on the TENS. By 18:30 though, I felt I needed some different pain relief, so we decided to go back to the birth centre, hopefully to stay this time. When we got there I was examined and deemed to be in active labour (3cm) at about 20:00, so was allowed to stay, and went on to gas and air with the TENS. Found that fantastic and didn't let go for many hours! After a bit the TENS came off (not sure if it worked as I didn't notice any real difference when I took it off, but it was a great distraction anyway!) and I had a bath there for a couple of hours and was given some clary sage to speed things along as the contractions were strong but not as regular as the midwife wanted. I was examined again at about midnight, and was 6cm, so was allowed to go in the proper birthing pool. Had to wait a bit longer though as someone else delivered and it was all cleaned up and refilled. The pool was fantastic, first time I'd been properly submerged in a bath for months! However the contractions slowed down to 7-10mins apart, and eventually the midwife did an Artificial Rupture of Membranes to try and speed things along (to no effect). At about 5am she made me get out of the pool, and examined me again - still 6cm, which was pretty hard to take for all the hours and pain I'd had.
As I'd been stuck at 6cm for a while and things seemed to be slowing down, they phoned the main hospital, and unfortunately I was no longer deemed a low risk case and was told I'd have to transfer to the consultant-led unit to have a drip to get things going. Had a fun ride in an ambulance, with my life seeming to depend on the gas and air by this point. Once I got to the hospital at about 6.30am on Friday, they were going to give me pethidine to take away the extra pain of the syntocin drip, but I asked for an epidural instead- my natural birth at the birthing centre was obviously out, and after more than 24hours I justy wanted all the pain to go away. The epidural didn't take fully as I still had lots of back pain, but it was so much better than before that I didn't care.
After about 6 hours on the syntocin drip, I was still only 6cm dilated. Apparently Jamie's head was in a funny position and hadn't turned down properly. They said I could give it another 3 hours or so and see, or go for a C-section straight away. I chose the section, as we all agreed I'd given it a good go, and to be honest I didn't see how I'd have the strength to do any pushing anyway by that point.
It all went very quickly from then on, whisked into theatre with the epidural topped up, and Jamie was born at 13:39, weighing 7 pounds 13.5 ounces. Two weeks on we've both recovered well, and trying to get to grips with parenthood!
Latent first stage: 15.5 hours - pain relief TENS and baths. Active first stage: 17.5 hours - pain relief TENS, Entonox, bath, birthing pool (ARM performed), Epidural (with Syntocin drip.) Second stage: c-section. Third stage: c-section. Total: 33.5 hours.