Harley's Birth - a prolonged labour

On the 2^nd July 2008 I was 38 weeks pregnant with my first baby.  I woke up in the morning to find my waters were leaking so we paged our midwife and went to the Birth Centre to get checked.  I was examined by Karen H and she confirmed that it was my waters, at this stage I wasn’t feeling any contractions so we decided to wait for labour to start naturally and we went home.  I couldn’t feel any contractions until that night.  I couldn’t sleep that night because my contractions were strong and I couldn’t lie down, I paged our Midwife Michelle at 2:15am and we headed into the Birth Centre to meet her there.  It turned out my labour wasn’t getting anywhere and I was told to rest.  When we woke up my contractions had eased so we decided to go home and have acupuncture to get things going.  Again that night I couldn’t sleep, I paged Marion in the morning and we went back to the Birth Centre at 9:00am.  I spent many hours in the shower and felt as though things were progressing my contractions were lasting between 50-70 seconds.  I hopped into the bath but after half an hour my contractions had eased so I had to get out of the water.  I had an exam at 2:00pm to see how far along I was and discovered I was only 6cm dilated.  I was given a couple of options, to have Syntocinon or to continue, I wanted to continue.  At 4:00pm I was examined again and there had been no changes.  We decided to get transferred to have Syntocinon. At 5:00pm I received Syntocinon.  To help with the pain from the Syntocinon I decided to use the gas, it made me feel light headed and silly but it took the pain away.  Marion had come across with me but had to go home around 8:00pm as she had been with me for a long time.  Tania a birth Centre midwife came and took over from Marion.  I eventually couldn’t take it anymore and asked for an epidural. I had the epidural at 10pm and had a couple of hours rest after that.  At 12:30am I was told by Tania that I was ready to push, at 12:45am Saturday the 5^th July my baby boy Harley was born.  I was transferred back to the Birth Centre to stay and had a great time with my new family.  Although my labour with Harley was not what I had hoped for I was happy with the support my midwives gave me and for being able to make my own choices throughout my labour, this made my birth experience a good one.  Thanks to all the Midwives who helped out throughout my Labour, that was Karen H, Michelle, Bernie, Marion and Tania