My plan for a natural birth didn't happen but my little bug arrived safe and sound :)

After 2 weeks of being monitored in the hospital every day for lack of movement is was induced on my due date. Dropped oldest boy to school and checked in to the maternity hospital, they gave me the option of either a hormone induction or a balloon induction and having done my research I chose the balloon.

The balloon was inserted fairly painlessly and within a few minutes I started getting some cramps and within 2 hours I was 3cms dilated and the balloon fell out taking mucus plug with it.

That was the easy part, turns out their were no beds available in labour and delivery so I had to wait to go up and have my waters broken. After waiting and contracting all day a bed finally becomes available and they send me up at 5am the next morning, I got to hang around another 2 hours on no sleep before they broke my waters. After another hour of contractions they wait until their 1-2 minutes apart to decide they want to insert a canular in my hand for a hormone drip to speed things up - staying still was not the easiest at that point especially with only gas and air for the pain. I started asking for pethidine for the pain at this point but was told it was too early, finally nagged the midwife enough to get the pethidine. 10 minutes later I'm saying to the midwife I need to push, she tried to tell me it's too soon, 2 minutes and 2 pushes later she just about had her gloves on in time to catch the baby!

Gabriel Frank was born weighing a tiny 6pounds and 1oz and 50cm's long, I had minimal tearing and he arrived before the pethidine could kick in.

He's now a cheeky 9 week old :)