With both my labours I didn,t go in till I was 6cm, the contractions were not too painful, rather like bad period pains, so I weren,t sure it was labour till the midwife came and examined me and told us to go in. My first was back to back and that was more painful and hard to deal with because I had horrid backache. The midwife had to break my waters just before I started to push and that made the pain a bit worse and I suddenly felt like I had to poo!!! With it being my first I was surprised because I thought i,d have the pain in my foof so I was trying not to push incase I did poo, but I couldn,t help it and after about an hour I delivered my son. I was surprised it took an hour coz it only felt like 5 mins. Whilst I was pushing I noticed a squirt of blood hit the midwife and just thought that was coz his head was crowning but I had a second degree tear and didn,t feel a thing. I was quiet scared of tearing too but when it came to it I wasn,t bothered.
My second was a water birth and it was brilliant, I felt the difference in the contractions straight away. The pool was quiet big and really warm which helped me relax and labour progressed quickly. When it came to pushing it was easier in the pool coz I was free to move and I could crawl around on my hands and knees which would have been hard on the floor not to mention i,d probably look like an idiot!! I was worried about tearing again but thankfully I didn,t, I was so relaxed and chilled out I didn,t know his head was out till the midwife spotted it. I,d defintly recommend a water birth and i,m gonna try and have one this time.