Here’s my super detailed birth story.

I was overdue by 8 days and was scheduled to be induced by the gel on the 9th day with a plan to break waters on the 10th day if the gel didn't work. At 4.30am on Tuesday (8th day, gel scheduled for 3pm) morning I got up to wee, did so and then as was about to get back into bed was standing next to bed drinking bottle of water and then I suddenly squirted from between my legs. Quickly sat down on toilet and more fluid came out straight into the toilet. Wiped and there was goopy mucus type plug with some specks of what looked like old blood in it. It smelled kind of sweet and the texture was kind of syrupy. I was confident it was some sort of waters not urine.

I had period type cramping for the rest of the morning and phoned the hospital once it hit 9am and they asked I go in to check on things. They did a swab to confirm that there was amniotic fluid/indicators of membrane break and CTG to check baby was going OK which it was. Decision was mine as to whether I wanted to go home and labour by myself or stay in hospital. I decided to go home as I knew it could be hours more as the cramps weren't painful enough yet.

Went home and the contractions really picked up between 1.30-2.30pm. For about an hour they came every 6-8 minutes but they weren't very painful yet, more like very bad period pain. Then they faded again, not totally, but they def weren't picking up. Went for a walk with husband from about 5.30-6.30pm, watched a final sunset together. Had some major and minor contractions during that walk but then they eased off again.

By now my sister, parents and in laws had arrived to stay at my house and we were all having dinner at about 8pm. My mum and my sister made me laugh a lot and this actually seemed to bring on a couple of really strong contractions and then from here they didn't ease up. They consistently picked up from 10-11. I was in bed with hubby trying to watch DVDs but couldn't concentrate anymore. We turned out light for hubby to try and get some sleep and he dozed a bit between 11.30-12.30 but by 12.30 my pain was significant enough he was awake. I had the overwhelming urge like I needed a bowel movement but it was excruciating in that it felt like I needed to pass diarrhoea but I couldn't make anything move. I also had the urge to vomit so was sitting on the toilet feeling sick out both ends but not actually passing anything. At about 1am I had 4 consecutive contractions at 3-4 minutes apart so decided we needed to get to the hospital quick. Collected our things, said bye to mum and sis while contracting so bad I could hardly stand up. Contracted twice in car on the 7 or so minute drive to the hospital and again as soon as I walked into the hospital so I felt the baby was going to come fast. They got me into maternity and the nurse asked if it felt like I needed to push and I said it felt like I needed to rid myself of really bad diarrhoea, not like I actually needed to bear down for baby. She did an internal and looked a bit cranky because she said my cervix was "very posterior" and not at all dilated "I can't even get the top of one finger in", which made no sense at all as just on Sunday I had an internal and they said my cervix had come forward and was quite anterior now (as it was very posterior on the Thursday), very soft and I was probably 2cm dilated. So when this nurse told me I wasn't at all dilated and was so posterior she could hardly even reach it, it really broke my heart. It made no sense for how regular my contractions were and it really worried me that if I was still only in very very early stages how on earth would I manage the pain as it progressed? She seemed annoyed, as though I had come to the hospital too early. I told her again that I had serious rectal pain and felt like I needed a diarrhoea, sat on the toilet a few times and again also felt like spewing a couple of times but couldn't manage to release the pressure. Midwife suggested a bath "for my back pain" I again said it's not back pain it's in my rectum and she said she thinks baby is pressing against my bowel and will turn into back pain so the bath will help with that. I agreed to a couple of panadeine forte and then laboured in the bath from about 2.30am until about 5am, usually laying back but occasionally sitting forward with hubby putting hot water on my back, but that didn't seem to help. I did feel more relaxed in the bath as I felt if I let loose the diarrhoea urge it wouldn't bother me as it would just go in the bath. Some of this pain was excruciating and I remember thinking through the fog that I may never have another child and that I am going to probably need an epidural at this rate. The effect of the panadeine forte helped me doze a couple of times in the bath but the contractions were anywhere from 4-7 minutes so any snooze didn't last long. At about 5am the nurse came back and said doctor wanted me to have a penicillin drip

as we were now 24 hours since my waters broke. I hesitated about this because I had already started oral anti biotics the day before but she was back a short time later and obviously doctor still thought the penicillin was a good idea so I agreed and Hubby helped me out of the bath so she could put in a cannular. Once I was on my feet again the urge to PUSH what felt like diarrhoea came back and I sat on the toilet but soon couldn't feel the difference between pushing for poo and pushing for baby. I felt like I was bearing down and baby would start to crown so we got off toilet and onto the bed. The nurse got a bit of a shock when Hubby told her I was having urge to push. I think she just wanted the problem to go away as she seemed to be busy or distracted. She got me on the bed and put the CTG back on to monitor the very obvious contractions and baby. She then tried to put a cannular in back of both hands and failed so went to get another nurse to put cannular in my wrist. I must have been dehydrated as my veins weren't great and they're usually easy to find, but the second nurse got it fairly quickly. They hooked me up to a penicillin drip. During this time I became fairly frustrated at the midwife as she asked me about 3 times if my contractions were consistent. She had her very own eyes on me, plus touching my stomach and feeling them with her own hands, plus the CTG and could SEE I was contracting regularly. I wasn't exactly every 3 minutes or exactly every 5 minutes but they were strong and were consistently occurring every 3-7 minutes. Her asking "are they regular" just didn't make sense. It was like she was implying my labour wasn't yet established. In fact she had actually said after checking my cervix at about 1am "I can't even say you're established yet". It felt like she didn't want to face that I was ready to push. She'd made a comment earlier that made us think they would need to call more staff in if that was the case, so maybe that was contributing to her behaviour. Hubby had kept up timing them throughout the night and the average was every 4'minutes so he was just like "you tell me, is that regular? Plus she has the urge to push." (Continued in comments)