i have a baby!

My labour/birth was good. Thats what the midwives, doctors, my mum and my husband all say. And it's true. It was a very good labour, even I must admit that and it was the first time I'd given birth so I have nothing to compare it to.
I think the fact that it was a good birth was a blessing because of all the (slight) stress and anxiety surrounding my labour and pregnancy at the end.
At 28 weeks pregnant there were some concerns that our baby was smaller than he should be at that stage, so from then till I gave birth I had a scan every 2 weeks to monitor growth and sometimes even another scan in between to check for other things. The growth scans began to show good results and our boy was on track to be a healthy baby at least 7lbs in size.
Sunday 18th February (39 weeks pregnant), I felt no baby movements all day which was very unusual because our boy was a total wriggler, always moving and kicking me in the side. I called my midwife at 8:30pm and was at the hospital at 9pm hooked upto the CTG monitor to check baby was ok. He was.. oh and as soon as the machine was on monitoring his heart rate, he started moving. Gave us all a scare for nothing. Even still a doctor came in to see me and ask about me personally, if I was feeling well, had any pains etc. I had a rash on my hands and itchy feet which apparently could mean I had this liver condition that could come from my placenta. I don't know the exact details but its not common in pregnancy and a bit indicator is that the bottoms of your feet are itchy. They took my blood and had them sent for results. I still don't have those results and even if I did have the condition, its gone now, as its one that usually goes away as soon as your placenta is out. The doctor did however book me in for an ultrasound the following morning just to check baby out more.
So, Monday 19th February at 10am I came in for a scan to check baby. A couple hours waiting for a doctor to come give us results and being hooked up to the CTG monitor again, we were then told that the scan indicated that our baby had stopped growing and my placenta looked like it was dying. They could see that our baby was conserving energy and sending nutrients from the placenta to specific organs but wasn't getting those nutrients everywhere.
The doctor decided that they wanted me to come in for induction that evening. We went home, grabbed our hospital bags, got something to eat and heading back to the hospital that afternoon. Waited in a delivery suite room for a few hours and then at 9:45pm doctor came in to get induction started. As they were about to start the procedure they'd chosen to start my induction, my waters broke and about 5 minutes later I had my first contraction. It seemed that it was time for me to go into labour anyway and they didn't even have to induce me.
I was kept hooked upto a CTG monitor the whole way through my labour and I stayed lying on the bed, on my side. My plan during my pregnancy was that I was going to keep moving and be upright during labour to help with the process but that plan went out the window, especially when my contractions caused lower back pains and closer to the end that pain spread to my hips and upper legs. My husband spent the whole time rubbing my back through every single contraction and giving me encouraging words, letting me know I could do it.
My mum was also there to hold one hand while my other hand squeezed hard onto anything I could grab.
From 10pm - 3:15am I pushed through every contraction without any pain relief (other than my husbands back rubbing). Then I asked to try the gas, which is quite interesting. The gas did not help with the pain at all, I felt every contraction, but it did however make me feel very floaty and inbetween contractions I had a short period of time where I felt a bit more rested/relaxed.
At 3:30am a doctor came in for an examination and told us I was 4cm dilated.
From that information I thought it was gonna be a long while before our baby decided to come out. So I continued to push through my contractions with just the gas even as the pain got worse.
Then at 4:45am I felt the most intense burning pain I've ever experienced and I asked for an epidural (something I had planned not to have, but it hurt so bad) only to be told that it was too late because that burning pain meant that he was coming.
I pushed and pushed through that horrible burning pain and at 5:02am on Tuesday 20th February our beautiful baby boy was born.
He came out easily and I didn't need any stitches at all.
Our boy was born completely healthy despite his small size and weight of 5lb 7oz. He was so tiny! When it came to dressing him none of the newborn clothes we bought with us fit him, so my mum had to go out later that day and buy us a bunch of prem baby clothes (and even some of those were and still are loose on him).
Tobias George Rowley is 2 weeks old today, still small wearing prem clothes, but he now weighs 6lb 8oz! which is amazing and means he's healthy and eating well.
Still adjusting to our new life as parents and can't believe that we have a baby but we couldn't be happier and love our little man more than anything in this world. Our greatest adventure has begun.