The Labour

It was not until Sunday morning at 4:30am on the 13th January that I felt the real rumbles - they were strong and came every 15minutes, I stayed in bed and played the practiced hypnobirthing tapes until 8am, I was hungry so I went down around 9am to make breakfast and called the father to be to let him know that his son would be born today. We spoke for a long time, I was calm and breathing through my pressures, it was around 11:00 after finishing my breakfast that I told Mpumi I was in labour and we called my doula that the day we have been waiting for has finally arrived, I explained to her that I was managing well and that she did not have to rush over.I took a well deserved shower for 20 minutes, my doula arrived around 12:30ish and we started the relaxation exercise and our practiced hypnobirthing excercise, I was so relaxed and went to my safe place almost everytime in the middle of my contraction, the contractions were coming almost every 7 minutes, I had lunch around 3pm and enjoyed it through my contractions including water.Busi came over and was really impressed in how I was managing the contraction all because of the relaxed state that I was in...it was around 4pm when we called the MLU because the contractions were coming so close together. We left around 4:30 and arrived at 5pm. Was admitted immediately and checked - I had dilated by 6cm (I had asked the nurse to not tell me but to tell my doula - did not want to be dissapointed just incase I was only 2cm) the contractions were getting closer - but I seemed to be sleeping in the middle of them. I went into the pool around 7pm and it was soothing lying in the warm water to relieve my back, my doula was right there continuing to encourage me and keeping me focused at the work at hand...Around 9pm I was ready to bear down, the urge to push baby Nathan was really strong, so I had to get out of the pool (in Ireland you can only labour in the pool but not birth), I then sat on the birthing stool.