This is a long post, and I apologise in advance ladies, but part of writing it is to help me process.

I am 9 weeks postpartum, which is a little while to wait before sharing a birth story I know, but my labour experience wasn't the best.

I had a feeling that things would be a little drawn out when I started with latent labour and it went on for a week. My baby's head had been engaged since I was 36 weeks, so when I started with the latent phase I was glad that things seemed to be happening. However, my due date came and went, and it wasn't until I was 5 days overdue that the maternity unit agreed that labour was actually happening. They called me in and did an examination, confirming that I was 2cm dialated. The midwife did a sweep and sent me home, saying that she wanted my contractions to be 2 minutes apart before they would admit me (at the birthing classes they had said you'd be admitted when you reached contractions that were 4-5 minutes apart).

So I went home, took paracetamol and had a nice soak in the bath as I'd been instructed and hoped that things would progress. So far I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I was managing the pain purely with a TENS machine and paracetamol. (This was all on the Thursday)

The hours passed by and gradually my contractions got closer together. I rang the maternity unit again at around lunchtime on the Friday and was told to stay at home as they had no beds available and I was managing the pain fine. I was a little annoyed but they promised to ring when a bed became available.

The pain got worse through the the evening and I decided to try and get some sleep (which didn't happen) and by 1am the pain was unbearable. My husband rang the ward this time and was once more told that there was no beds but to come up so they could assess me.

I arrived at the hospital and the midwife booked me in on the assessment unit. She popped me on a monitor and left us for a while so the machine could collect some data. When she came back she confirmed what I already knew, that I was in labour, and tried to find me a bed on the ward. It wasn't until 9am that a bed became available, and as I wasn't admitted onto a ward until then I had gone the whole night with no pain relief except my TENS. I was shattered.

When I finally got onto the ward I was examined again and I had only progressed to 3cm. I'll be honest, I cried. So the staff hooked me up to a hormone drip and gave me gas and air to help me through the contractions. The gas and air helped a lot in the beginning, but after two hours of being on the drip I hadn't dialated anymore where they would have expected a cm per 30 minutes.

I was transferred up to the delivery suite so they could give me pethidine and increase the drip rate to try and force my cervix to dilate. The pethidine worked but only for around an hour and a half before it wore off, and it can only be given once every 4 hours so for a time in between the pain was back tenfold before it could be administered again.

Every 4 hours the staff would check my cervix and slowly it opened to 5cm. And that's where it stopped. By midnight on the saturday, I was still at 5cm dilated. The hormone driver could be turned up a little more, but by now I was struggling to cope with the pain. My body was trying to push my baby out, and I was contracting continuously with no break in between. My husband and my mother (who had battled her way onto the delivery suite at this point) asked the consultant looking after me if a c-section was an option, but he said that he wanted to try other options before he made that decision. So the next step was to put in an epidural.

Having the epidural was a surreal experience. It was midnight on New Year's <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android.eve">Eve</a> and I was sitting hunched over, terrified of moving in case the anaesthetist slipped, listening to fireworks being set off to welcome in the new year. But once it was in and the anesthetic was administered all the pain vanished. It was bliss.

The midwife increased the driver to maximum and, although I could still tell my body was contracting, there was no pain at all. I even managed to sleep for an hour (something I hadn't done since the Wednesday night!)

The epidural started to wore off at around 7am, but only down the one side of my body, so while half of me was in agony, the other was still numb. My cervix was checked again, and it was still at 5cm dilated. I honestly broke down. I was exhausted both physically and emotionally. My baby was now in distress, and the consultant finally decided that an emergency c-section was needed.

By time I got down to theatre my body was going into shock. I had a temperature of 42°c, my heart was racing and my blood pressure had dropped. I was also severely dehydrated. One of the surgeons commented that I'd they'd have waited any longer that both my baby and myself would have died.

My daughter was born at 9:06am on New Year's Day weighing 8lb 10oz and measuring 51cm in length. We named her Isabella Grace. She is our little fighter, and I'm convinced that a miracle happened that day.

The birth has left me a little shaken. I struggle to accept that I have "given birth" and I have had several internal and external infections. I had to have a blood transfusion as I had a bleed during the surgery and I have also been left with kidney damage due to the dehydration I suffered.

My little Isabella has also had a few struggles, including contracting an infection through delivery and then struggling to feed and gain weight.

But now we seem to both be on the path to total recovery.

I don't know if I shall be having another baby yet. It is far too soon for me to think about it. I know that the next time will be different, but it scares me to think about what could happen.

I suppose the message I am trying to convey is that we are all stronger than we could ever imagine. I'm not trying to scare anyone, I'm just being brutally honest. Go into labour with an open mind, because you can't plan or truly prepare for how events will unfold.

Don't be ashamed to ask for pain relief. If you need it, ask for it. No one will judge you (which was something I stupidly worried about).

And be proud of yourself. Childbirth is a dangerous business. What we go through, and what we survive is a miracle in itself.

So good luck to the mummies still waiting for their babies, and congratulations to all who have already been through their own labour experiences.