After a looooonnnng hard haul of a pregnancy, turns out Kiddo was pretty quick to come out when he had no choice about it!

Arrived at hospital on Monday 4th, 9:30, and had the pessary put in to start the induction at 11am. It's a one-off pessary, 24 hours. While they put it in they checked me and found I was already 2cm and soft (thank the Lord...)! They put me on a monitor to check me and baby, and everything was fine but no major activity.

It wasn't until around 5:30pm that afternoon when my mum was visiting and I started to wonder whether I should time the ctx I was having; they were a little uncomfortable.

By the time D came back to hospital at about 6:30pm the ctx were a little stronger and I was very aware of how frequent they were. They put me back on the monitor at about 8:30pm and I was hyper-stimulating; the pessary was causing me to over-contract. They were quite strong and literally back to back, and my back was VERY painful.

All of a sudden everything started to take off; at 9:30pm the contractions were really uncomfortable and I was vocalising through every one, and power walking as much as I could in between. They checked me - I was still only 2cm!!! I put the TENS machine on but it did little to help.

I begged to go up to labour and delivery to have the pessary taken out; I was having a LOT of pressure, the ctx had no breaks between them and no position was "comfy".

Finally went over to L&D 10:00pm, crouching on the bed, mooing loudly while being wheeled along the corridor, draped in a blanket! By this point I was in pain and fast getting tired. I couldn't sit on the birthing ball because the pressure and back pain was ridiculous; far worse than I had ever known, the TENS machine still wasn't helping so they gave me gas & air.

They examined me at 11:00 to take out the pessary (which had actually fallen out anyway  ) and found I was 7cm and the waters were bulging  within about half an hour I was ready to push. I gave one almighty push - and totally peed on the bed! (I was on my knees crouched over the head of the bed).

Gave up on the gas & air (I'd caught it on my gums while bearing down and was bleeding in my mouth; yuck) and was about to go for the 4th push when my waters EXPLODED. Everything was soaked; I thought someone had thrown a bucket of water at my bottom. Unfortunately, LO hadn't engaged until that point, and the force of the waters going meant that the head suddenly slammed downwards into my pelvis. This caused everything to shift drastically (thanks, SPD...) and had almighty cramp in my right hip, right the way down to my foot. Excruciating pain.

With 2 mw frantically massaging my leg and hip I pushed maybe 4-5 more times and the head slowly appeared facing the wrong way - baby was posterior. Then with one more push he was born: Isaac Jay Mountford 12:11am weighing in at a healthy 11lbs 1/2 oz, and 61cm (24 inches). Minor 2nd degree tear, no stitches, everything else absolutely fine. Latched on straight away, and although we're just working through some technical probs, he feeds great. Was let home Tuesday afternoon.