Being my second baby I had assumed that he would be early and since his older brother was 10 days early I never thought you would be late.

But my due date passed (4th july) I went horse riding four days overdue to try and get things moving along but nothing.

About six days overdue I started getting mild but pittiful contractions and with that a bit of a show but it was on and off.

At a midwife appointment i was told he was facing the wrong way and hadnt engaged yet and until he turned and engaged he wasnt going anywhere, swimming was adviced to help turn him, I had a whole lot of false labour contractions everytime after i went swimming.

When i saw the midwife next he had turned but not engaged, a few days later i went in to see about having a stretch n sweep and he had engaged and during the stretch n sweep found out I was 3cm dialated but my cervix hadn't thinned out yet so all those contractions werent for nothing I went swimming every night as they seemed to help bring on contractions but they were still mild.

On friday 14th we (hubby, Sam, my sister Lisa and I), went to mabau (mother and baby assesment unit) to have a scan to see how much longer he could stay in there as I was now 10days overdue, they said I could go 4 more days,

they put me on a heart monitor to check how he was doing and he was fine,

some lady did an internal, she never told me how much I was dialated (turned out i was 3-4cm), she was going to give me some prostioglan(sp) gel to thin my cervix but apparently there was no need coz that had already thinned out, so she decided that I should have my waters broken I asked why, she said coz i was ready and breaking the waters would hurry things along, I ask if there was any need to, she said no, so I said no thanks, coz i had been having contractions that had been doing something so felt that I would be happy to wait another 4 days coz the catch to having my waters broken was to stay at middlemore(big hospital) as it was an intervention so I would have needed to be monitored and would of ended up with a birth I didnt want, so I flat out refused, she rang my midwife coz the lady was still wanting to go with breaking my waters, as my midwife was down stairs delivering someone else she couldnt be delivering me at the sametime so she said if I dont want to then to let me go home so I went home and the whole way home I was having contractions.

All evening i was having very mild but manageable contractions, mum had come and got Sam earlier as I was curtain that baby was coming that night and as it got later and contractions werent getting any worse I though maybe he wasnt coming that night after all.

WELL at 1:45am baby decided that yes infact he was coming that night and all of a sudden contractions went form bearable to painful i had to get out of bed and i decided to ring the midwife so i could go up to the hospital and see what was happening when she asked if i wanted to go to the unit i wasnt sure i didn't want to bother her for nothing as she had just got home from delivering a middlemore baby so i said i would go up and have a community midwife check me, on the way there the contractions were getting much worse, different from my 1st birth as sam was posterior(back to my back ie wrong way) and it was my back that was in pain through the birth, this pain was just my front, when i got to the hospital at 2:00am they checked me at 2:10am and i was 7cm dialated. my midwife had arrived just b4 they checked me. i asked for gas as i had it with sam to try and avoid pushing (coz of him facing the wrong way) and it had helped me to sleep so being 2am i felt like sleeping through the contractions and it was bliss didnt feel a thing, at 2:47 i started to push even with the gas so i handed the gas off and started to push, with sam i never felt the urge to push or him being born coz i was so half a sleep from a 13 hour labour, but after only 7mins of pushing Rory Alexis born in his waters at 2:54am, weighing 8lb 8oz, on Saturday the 15th july 2006.

he had a rocky start I was so dazzed by the gas that I wasn't all there but he was taken to the recuss(sp) table for suction and oxygen as he was having trouble breathing, after over an hour I managed to get out of the pool (it was a water birth) and onto the bed and I got to hold him and feed him and he came right almost instantly was just a bit of mucus, but he brought it up and was fine.