I was happy to be making progress, having reached 6cm with just gas and air to help me through. Our midwife, Louise, asked if I'd like to take a bath or a shower to help with the increasing contractions, and I was thrilled to get to do this - one of my biggest goals was to be able to labour in water for a little while.

I stayed in the bath for a while, with hubby keeping me company and splashing water over my giant belly. Louise had brought in a portable gas container, so I could use that if I wanted to. I tried to get through most of them with the hot water, but they were starting to take my breath away - so the gas was, once again, my friend. It was while I was stark nekkid in the tub that I met my 'new' OB for the first time, Dr C. He was a character, and I felt really comfortable with him - even in the nude. :) He had stopped by to say hello and see how things were, and the visit was short and sweet.. apparently the other lady in labour was getting close to the pushing stage.

It was about this time that things started getting really tough. The contractions were hard & fast, the gas & air combination wasn't taking effect quick enough to combat it and I was exhausted - it had been around 14 hours of labour at that point and I'd not slept for another 14 hours before that, the day before.

{Going into labour at night was not ideal. I wish I'd slept more.}

Our midwife, Louise, was getting concerned with how tired I was, so asked to do another check to see how things were progressing. After all those hours of labouring, I was only at 7cm. She spoke with the OB and they decided that if I didn't progress further in the next few hours, they would look at speeding things up with a syntocinon drip to get to the final stage.

I was determined to get things moving, so I stayed up and about, swaying over the baby warming table & trying to focus. Unfortunately, the contractions were coming harder and faster, and it was all I could do to stay upright, drink water & suck down on the gas. I also desperately needed to wee, but every time I would waddle back and forth to the bathroom, I'd try and go... but nothing happened. Turns out that baby's head was so far down, she was quite literally wreaking havoc on all of my pelvic floor muscles, and I couldn't pee! Not good, but I wasn't to know at the time. Two hours of clock-watching passed, and our midwife returned.

I was at 9cm if she stretched - and oy, did she stretch. The doctor appeared, and together they tried to keep me 'with it' long enough to explain what they'd like to do to help things along. It was 2pm. They wanted to get the drip going to help me fully dilate, but they were worried that I'd be too exhausted to cope with the contractions that it would bring on. Because of this, they strongly suggested that I have an epidural. I was almost delirious from the pain, but I was SO frustrated - I had planned all along to have no plan, but I really had wanted to get through without an epidural, if I could. To let me get all the way to 9cm, and then have an epidural? I felt as though my body had failed me, and in turn, I'd failed myself in some way.

I remember getting really emotional at this point, and crying to Jason about how I hadn't wanted an epidural - but at the same time, I was in absolute agony with the syntocinon drip. I also kept having ridiculous urges to push - and I was screaming through these contractions and pushing without any control what-so-ever. Knowing that it could still be hours before I got to 10cm, I agreed to have the epidural. This, my friends, terrified me more than the idea of a natural childbirth - I was absolutely petrified of being paralysed, having the epidural not work, or of consequently needing more invasive manoeuvres to get the baby out.{i.e. forceps, vacuum, c-section}

The anaesthetist arrived, and was trying to tell me the risks of the procedure - but I was too busy freaking out, crying, and pushing/screeching like a banshee to pay much attention. The gas & air nozzle was in my mouth constantly, no breaks in its use, and I was, er, a bit of a mess, to put it mildly. Jase says that this was the point where he was a little frightened on my behalf. Transition... it's no joke. Anyway, anaesthetist man was wearing a red flannel shirt & I felt the need to compliment him on it constantly. I could hear myself talking about it and felt like a moron, but I couldn't control my word vomit. And, thanks to my good friend Nitrous-Oxide, I felt like I kept repeating myself over and over again, and then giggling about it, and then crying, because OMG THINGS HURT.

I'm fairly sure that my mind has blanked out a lot of my experiences of the the transitional part of labour, probably to preserve what little dignity I had left. Somehow I ended up hunched over Jason and preparing for the epidural, just like you see in the movies. I remember the local anaesthetic hurt like a bitch, but I don't remember much after that. Once it was in, they laid me back down & put in a catheter for my poor blader {sweet relief} - I'm not kidding you, I filled that bag up in about five seconds flat. Ahhhhh. Labour: so glamorous, eh?