12 days overdue I was seriously fed up, I felt like turning my phone off because of all the calls and “is he here yet” text messages!

Induction was booked 24/8/18 at 12:30 and I was so desperate. On the 23rd, I lost part of my plug (I thought it was the whole thing but little did I know this thing was persistent and there was loads of it), I had no twinges so thought nothing of it until 3pm I got pains that made me crutch my stomach but they weren’t regular so I thought Braxton Hicks.

Me and my husband were going to go trainer shopping outside of town but I text him to say maybe we should stay local as I’m having cramps. He got all excited but I tried not to get our hopes up as I was a little depressed my baby being so late.

6pm we walked around town, the twinges were 5 minutes apart and I had to stop and hold myself. Husband said “you sure you want to go out for dinner” and I said YES it might be the last time for a while! 7.30pm we were waiting for food and they were excruciating...so we got our food to go and went home, I called the hospital and they told me to bath/take paracetamol (I did neither - I just bounced on my yoga ball) and then an hour later around 9pm off we went!

I was only 4cm dilated but my BP was high so I had to be monitored regularly and couldn’t give birth in the posh suite ☹️

I didn’t want an epidural, I just had gas & air which I found useless and just hurt my throat....and 2 doses of pethadin (I loved the stuff, felt like I was having the best sleep between contractions even though I wasn’t and was having double contractions at that point).

My waters didn’t break, they wanted to break them for me but when they did they weren’t there anymore 🤷🏻‍♀️ must’ve broken when I went to the toilet mid-labour (I didn’t want to pee/poo on the bed).

The pethadin made me and baby tired, so the final push wasn’t enough and his head wasn’t coming out, so they had to use a fontuse.

11.5 hours of labour...a (painful) episiotomy and stitches later...I had my 7lbs 14oz baby boy on my naked chest covered in gunk (which I said I would never do!) and everything else was a blur!

Wouldn’t change a thing, I have a love like no other and would have another baby in a heartbeat!