Pregnancy & Baby 

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Andrea's birth story

Pregnant women are often inundated with terrifying accounts of labour. iVillager Andrea decided to set things straight with her happy birth story

I had such an excellent birth experience that I thought I should share it with you all. When I was pregnant, people were far too quick to tell me their horror stories. So, it's about time you pregnant mums heard some positive news for a change.

The build up
As my pregnancy progressed I decided two things about delivery day. First, I didn't like the idea of an epidural, as I wanted to be as active as possible during labour. Secondly, I promised myself that I wouldn't swear and scream the delivery suite down. Believe it or not I managed to stick to these plans. This is what happened...

Three days before my due date, my partner, Andy, and I were watching Footballers Wives. I had been getting Braxton Hicks contractions all night but didn't think much of it as I'd had them since I was six months pregnant. I sat forward on my chair and suddenly felt something drop inside me (like the baby's head had moved down) and a trickle of water ran down my leg, I was shocked - it happened so suddenly. I told Andy, and we were both really excited. I went to the loo and, sure enough, my waters had broken.

Straight away, I started having what felt like period pains. They were coming every five minutes, so I phoned the general infirmary and they told me to make my way there immediately. Well, that's when the fun began. First we had to get my bag and the last minute things together. It was total chaos - despite making a list, when the time came, we still couldn't organise ourselves.

We finally got out of the house and jumped in the car, only to realise we had no petrol and no money. We had to go to my mum's and borrow 20 quid, fill the car up, and also drop our dog off at my best friend's house en route. It was like something from a Carry On film. By the time we were really on our way to the hospital my contractions were only three minutes apart. I thought I would be giving birth on the hard shoulder of the M26.

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