Toni tells her birth story: 'It was third baby and I was planning on a homebirth and using gas and air and a tens machine for pain relief. My waters started leaking one morning so i called oh who rushed home like a giddy kid.
They leaked for 17 hours before I actually got any labour pains. I woke at 2am in quite a bit of pain, got oh up went downstairs and he helped me get my tens machine on (what an excellent invention, by the way!) .
By 5.30am contractions were getting quite painful so oh got kids up and dressed and nipped them round the corner to his parents' house. By 6.30am contractions were very painful and very very close so told oh to ring mw, screaming 'get me some f***ing gas and air'.
It took him ages to get in touch with someone as my midwife's phone was off, community midwives weren't answering so we ended up calling hospital to get on-call midwife out.
By 7am I got an uncontrollable urge to push (I was knelt on floor leaning on the sofa), so just went with it. oh was going 'umm don't you think its a good idea to take your knickers off, get a nighty on and put something on the floor?' I was concentrating on getting through each contraction, things like that seemed unimportant at the time lol.
So he put me in a nighty, took my knickers off and covered floor and sofa with some plastic sheeting and an old bed sheet (for absorbancy). I got back in the position I was previously in and carried on pushing (it was the only thing that eased the pain at that point as it was incredibly intense).
I got this funny idea that what if the baby wasn't ready to come and i was just wasting my energy pushing, so I put 2 fingers up to see if I could feel the head and I could. I was really gripping oh's hand as well and had a bad urge to sink my teeth into it but luckily for him I resisted.
I got on all fours and oh got behind me and said he could see the head (ouch! I heard someone describe the feeling as a searing hot cannonball coming down your vagina and that's exactly what it felt like). I pushed with all my might and the head was out
Oh said the cord was round baby's neck but I couldn't stop pushing, my body was just doing its own thing. He managed to get his fingers round the cord and free it before I gave one last push and out popped Kieran!
Oh handed me our baby, declaring it's a boy (we didn't know the sex) and we wrapped him up. I asked oh to look and see if I had torn myself and he told me I hadn't (I was so glad as I was worried about it throughout pregnancy).
Five mins later, midwife arrived lol she cut cord, delivered placenta, wrote some notes cleaned up and went, she was only here about 2 hours.
Oh helped me get a bath and made me a cuppa whilst I relaxed on sofa. Within 4 hours I was up doing the hoovering and washing up! That was THE best birth i have ever had, it was really calm and I felt really in control. Also just having myself and my partner there was incredibly special to both of us.
I had my other 2 kids in hospital and had epidurals. I was so proud of myself that I only used a tens for pain relief and so proud of my oh, he was like a little mw! I keep saying he's missed his calling in life, he was so calm and didnt panic one bit!
After my other 2 kids it's taken me quite a while to recover but I felt brilliant after only a few hours with Kieran, I felt like I hadn't even had a baby! I didn't even bleed much and all my baby weight dropped off in 2 weeks.
I can't believe it, I keep saying it must be 3rd time lucky! Also to my lovely fiance: Thankyou from the bottom of my heart for all you did that day, you were my hero and i couldnt have coped as well or done it without you! Love you.'
