My birth story:
We had planned to have our little one at a birthing unit. Just me, my partner and the midwife in the room.
We live in New Zealand but are from the UK. My Mum, Grandma, Sister and her boyfriend (who I had never met) were due to arrive in NZ Nov 30th and baby was due December 5th.
My family arrived and we spent the 1st December walking around malls and the city centre for roughly 5 hours. I was exhausted! I dropped my family off at the supermarket and I had to pop to a DIY store up the road. As soon as I set off I felt an awful pain like I needed the toilet. QUICKLY! So I dashed home (half way between the supermarket and DIY store), ran to the toilet but the pain had gone. I grabbed my keys to leave again and the pain came back, so I legged it to the loo. The pain, again, disappeared. I got a glass of water, drank it then set off out the door again. The pain came back again and I thought... Oh dear, I think this is it!
I called my partner who just happened to be at the front door, having left work early. I told him I thought it was starting and he said "probably not, it'll just be BH"... With that, the pain came back and I was on the floor!
He went to collect my family and when they got back he called the midwife. She arrived around 6pm and did in internal examination. By this point, I was already in a LOT of pain and sure baby was on her way soon.
But the midwife told me I had 12-14 hours before I needed to go to the hospital. I was like "nope, I'm telling you she's coming soon".
Anyway, unbeknownst to me, the midwife had told my partner to give me Paracetamol and Cocodamol. She told him it wouldn't do anything for the pain but would have a placebo effect. In reality, it blew my socks off and there are two hours I still can't remember to this day, where apparently I was asking my mum to remove my hips because I didn't need them and I tried to get in the car and drive myself to the hospital
I was having extremely painful contractions by this point and they were getting closer together. At 9pm I went to the toilet and my water broke. I heard the splash, looked at my partner and asked him if the baby was in the toilet haha
As soon as my water broke, I needed to push! I hobbled into the living room and told my mum and partner and my partner said "no I doubt you do" but my mum took one look at me, yelled at my partner to call the midwife and she laid me down on my bed, trying to recall how to stop pushing during labour.
The midwife came over (roughly half an hour later!!) and told me she thought baby had moved her position and I didn't really need to push! She did another IE and said "oh my god don't push, don't push! I can feel the head!"
She told me to breathe through the feeling that I needed to push and that she had to call an ambulance as she had no delivery tools with her. The ambulance arrived and they brought in the bed and she just shook her head and said "we don't have time!".
She was ordering my family about, telling hem what to do... Grandma was holding a mirror at the end of the bed so I could get a good visual idea of when to push, partner was on the bed at the side of me holding my hand, Mum was on my other side mopping my brow, sister's boyfriend (who I had met 24 hours earlier!) was heating towels with the hairdryer by the side of the bed, one paramedic was stood idly at the other side of the room wondering what to do with himself and the other paramedic was tending to my sister who had passed out in the hallway
All this whilst I was butt-naked on the bed, covered in sick because I'd had a reaction to the one puff of gas and air I had, and the midwife telling me I needed to push harder or she'd have to snip me and my baby was being born into a bunch of plastic supermarket bags we had put down to protect the bed!
Our birth plan definitely was not stuck to!!!
