6 days after our due date the contractions started at 12 am on a Monday night, they carried on an got stronger and to help I had a TENS machine.
This was followed with a couple of visits to the labour ward to see how things were progressing - to our frustration progressing but very slowly.
I was only 1 cm dilated after 12 hours of contractions so we went back home.
After 48 hours of contractions and pretty much no sleep we went back to the labour ward at 12 am Wednesday night to get an injection of diamorphine to help me sleep since we knew that things would kick off in the next 24 hours.
Ideally I didn't want any pain relief except gas and air but we were getting concerned how I would cope with the actual birth with no sleep and thought that it would wear off in time so that we could have a water birth as hoped for.
When we arrived at the hospital I was only 4-5 cm dilated... We didn't bring any of our bags in since we only thought I'd get the injection, sleep and probably go back home again.
The midwife went off to get the diamorhine, gave me some gas and air in the mean time. On the first puff it felt like a water balloon exploded and that was my waters breaking :)
At this point I no longer wanted the injection since things were now going to speed along quicker.
Luckily we were in the last pool room , the labour ward was really busy that night , so the midwife started filling up the pool.
With all of our bags being in the car luckily my husband brought my phone which had the hypnobirth tracks.
I asked him to put on track 3 on repeat - I'd been listening to that one a lot the last few days leading up to labour and found that one extremely helpful.
As soon as I was in the pool i felt like pushing and the midwife pretty much left me to it observing from the other side of the pool.
I had my husband next to me holding the gas and air and he did say afterwards how fascinating it was to watch me just focusing on the hypnosis track, that i was properly in the zone.
Less than 2 hours of pushing, at 2.43 am on the Thursday morning, our healthy baby boy Roscoe York was born :)
Even though I had a long labour I was determined to have a water birth with the help of hypnosis and gas and air.
I honestly believe that this probably wouldn't have been as easy if I had not done the course and continued the hypnosis afterwards.
I have also completed the feedback below.
Many thanks Sharon :-)
Kats & Toby