My 1st son was born on Sunday 25th sept 2005, 2 days after his due date. I started with pains on the Wednesday dinner time, I rung my husband at work to tell him the contractions were coming every 20 mins.

The contractions kept coming every 20 mins all night , then they stopped for a couple of hours at about 9am, rung hospital they said to wait till they come 5 mins apart for over 1 1/2hours... Thursday came and went still getting a strong contraction every 15/20 mins (kept sane by playing on the playstation with hubbie!) By Friday morning I was utterly shattered!! No sleep for 2 nights, not good!!

Contractions were still coming every 15/20 mins spoke to hospital again and was told to take paracetamol and a bath... by this time I'd had my tens machine on for a day and was very attached to it, so no bath for me! Another day on the playstation stopping now every 10/15 mins. Another call to maternity ward who said again "wait until they come every 5 mins".

By 8pm Friday night the contractions started coming every 5 mins... We went up to maternity ward to be "checked" by a midwife only to be told I was just 1 cm dilated!!!!! After over 2 days of pains for 1cm! My hubbie went home and I stayed in, I needed painkillers! By 10am Saturday I was 2cm dilated...yes I know this is the longest labour ever, lol. Contractions still coming every 5 mins. I then spent the day walking around the maternity ward, then around the hospital to help speed things up. By Saturday night 11pm I was 4/5cm dilated. By now the midwives were back on shifts that I'd seen on Friday night!

I finally got moved to a labour room at 12am, I was dead on my feet, hungry, exhausted & in pain... I had a wonderful midwife who said to use gas & air to relax me. After feeling sick, dizzy & nearly falling off a birthing ball she said I should have some pethadine to help me get some sleep. It was wonderful I got about 1hr sleep and felt half human again. By Sunday morning they said that they would try a syntocinon hormone drip. I'd had enough and asked for an epidural. I got it quite quickly but it only worked fully down my right side and only a bit on the left! After throwing up all over the bed I burst my waters.

At about 1pm Sunday the doctor came in and said if I wasn't fully dilated by 6pm I would have to have a caesarean. I was gutted. After full dosage of the syntocinon drip for 6hrs the doctor came in. I was fully dilated, finally! My little boy was born at 7.30pm Sunday after 5 days of pain & 30 mins pushing with the help of forceps and an episiotomy. No caesarean, brilliant... Simply the best moment in my life