Laura Tracey tells her birth story: 'I had a few problems when I was 35 weeks pregnant with my son Tyler James.
I was on holiday in Devon and I had a bleed. I went to hospital to get it checked out and they found that I was experiencing mild contractions every 3 minutes. I was convinced they were just Braxton Hicks (which can be regular) as they didn't hurt too much.
However because of the bleed they suggested giving me steroids and tablets to stop the contractions. I had both of these and the contractions went.
When I got home, me and my partner Matthew went into overdrive and really organised ourselves for the new arrival. However, 6 weeks after my scare I still hadn't gone into labour.
Eventually on the 4th December 2007 I was in labour. I had a show in the morning at about 6am just like I'd had with my first-born son, Ayden, aged 3. Matthew was at work so I did some ironing and made a casserole, all this before my son Ayden got up at 8am.
I was feeling some mild contractions every 8 minutes or so but nothing that took my breath away. This carried on all day.
Matthew came home at 5.30pm but I didn't tell him I thought it was happening because I didn't want to excite him too much in case it went on for days. We went to Asda to get a curry, like we'd done for 3 weeks everynight. I had 3 really big contractions in the shop which got a few stares and Matthew got really panicky and thought I was going to deliver on the shop floor!
We got home and had my curry which really kicked things off (that theory only works if you are actually experiencing labour pains!). I put Ayden to bed as I thought that I wasn't going to get to do that the next night. I then had a bath and went to bed for half an hour. I got up and went to see Matt and asked him to ring my mum to tell her to get ready as she was going to be there at the birth as well.
I then asked Matt to time the contractions for half an hour and they were coming every 3 minutes, so I rang the delivery suite who told me to come in.
When we got there, the midwife examined me and she said "I can't feel anything". I said "you are $£^%ng joking"; she laughed and said "it's because your waters are bulging but I'm guessing you're 6cms dilated!" At this point I said "please can I have some pethidine please now".
After the pethidine I had a few daft moments and loving moments with my mum and matthew. Mum said to me she loved it when I was on drugs! I got to 10cms and my waters still hadn't broken so the midwife said she'd have to break them. I've never seen an instrument like it!
When she broke them after 4 attempts (ouch) it was like a scene off The Matrix! My waters went splashing across the room narrowly missing the midwife's face as she had to dodge out the way! After the commotion, I was pushing for England.
I told the midwife I desperately didn't want to tear, but when Tyler's bald little head came out he'd decided to tuck his hand on his face. She told me I was definitely going to tear but I just wanted him out by this point as my feet were burning up.
Tyler came out head, hand, shoulders then body at 5.52am on the 5th December 2007 weighing 7lb 9oz, and I felt every bit of him coming out. I had torn but it wasn't too bad, so I got giddy on the gas and air whilst being stitched up.
Matthew dressed our newborn son in a Liverpool FC sleepsuit with help from my Mum and I got to give him his first feed.
The only bad thing about my birth was that I tore but I think it was a textbook labour and birth and I'd do it again tomorrow!'
