It was six days before my due date. My husband and I had been finishing off some home improvements (well he had, I just supervised), and our 2-year-old daughter was fast asleep in bed.

We finally finished at around 10:30 p.m. that evening. I was exhausted and my back was killing me. After a good back rub we went off to bed at around 11:30 p.m.

By 2:30 a.m. I was up bursting for the bathroom and feeling a little damp. When I got to the bathroom I noticed that I had a show. But at this point I did not really worry as I knew that labor may still be a long way off. So I returned back to bed.

At 3:30 a.m. after an hour of tossing and turning I decided I would get up and read for a while and make a milky drink. As I walked into the kitchen I felt a small contraction, but I still thought nothing of it (I was a week late with our little girl). Within half an hour, the contractions had gotten a little stronger and seemed to be closer together.

At 4:30 a.m. I woke my husband so that he could time the contractions. They were 10 minutes apart and lasting for about 20 seconds, but were still very mild.

By 5 a.m. my contractions were starting to get a little stronger, and my husband suggested that I try the tens machine, which was brilliant, a great distraction. By 5:30 a.m. my contractions really kicked off and had started to get painful. My husband rang the hospital. Their advice was to make our way there once my contractions were lasting a little longer or got closer together.

By 5:50 a.m. I couldn't stand the pain any longer. So we rang for my mother to come over to watch over our daughter while we when to the hospital.

At 6:10 a.m. it was agony and I could barely stand up. I was yelling at my husband to call an ambulance. He just thought I was overreacting and very quickly got me dressed and loaded bags into our car, ready for when my mum arrived.

At 6:15 a.m. my water broke all over the lounge. At this point I needed to push instantly. I could feel the baby's head pushing down; my husband looked a little white. Luckily my mum arrived and took one look at me and called for an ambulance.

At 6:20 a.m. all I could do was rock back and forth on all fours. The emergency services operator started to give my mother instruction on how to deliver my baby. My husband was running around the house turning on the heating, gathering towels. Thinking back it was like something you would see in an old movie.

At 6:25 a.m. the paramedics arrived. Thankfully their station is less than a mile from our home. The paramedic examined me and I was fully dilated and she could see the top of my baby's head. I was completely overwhelmed by the pain and in a state of shock and refused to push.

At 6:27 a.m. I started to push (still on all fours). With my first push the baby crowned. With the second I delivered the head and our baby instantly cried (the body was still inside), and with my final push our very precious second daughter was born.

She weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces (exactly the same as her sister) and we named her Lily Louise.

I just could not believe it. With my first daughter Rosie Bobbie, I had a 26-hour labor, morphine, an epidural, an episiotomy, follow by two failed vontose attempts and she was finally delivered with forceps. She was limp and needed to be resuscitated. She spent a week on intensive care recovering. It was the worst experience of my life, and I had been really nervous for the whole of my second pregnancy.

And here I sat nursing my new little angel, who just could not wait any longer to make her entrance. She is now 17 months old and has not changed one bit.

If we are blessed with another child I would definitely have a planned home birth, as I now think that this is the only way to give birth.

Thank you for sharing my story, and I hope that anyone out there who has had a bad first labor can seek some reassurance from my story.