So there I was. It was the day after Christmas and I waddled into the hospital to get induced. There was too much amniotic fluid around my baby and my doctor said that at exactly 39 weeks, I could get induced and we could get him out of there. My husband carried my three bags and my pillow and we made our way to our little home for the next few days.

Nurse number one shows up, with an “I hate my job” attitude and tried to start the IV. She missed twice. She then went to go get another nurse who seemed to resent her job. She missed too. Then we got the Queen nurse....who missed twice. By now I’m running out of places to put this thing so they go to get a NICU nurse who’s used to small veins. This sweet little woman tried valiantly; but also missed twice. Then the ER nurse came and missed. Then they called the anesthesiologist who missed once, swore in a language I didn’t recognize, and finally got the IV started. Don’t worry, I get to see this guy again in a day or so.

Night time falls and I get about 2 hours of sleep. Hope that’s enough sleep to be able to push out a kid I’m told is “on the large side!”

At about noon my water breaks. The nurse, who was supposed to get off at noon, cleaned it all up for me. But while I was sitting in the chair for her to clean the bed, my water broke again. So I stood up and it broke again. By this point this girl is livid she got roped into doing this right as her shift ended. Her focus now is keeping the fluid IN my own room and she scrambles to throw down towels by the door because there’s so much water now, it’s starting to leak out of the room.

30 minutes later. The job was done and I climbed back into bed, excited for my baby boy to arrive.

3 hours later I started puking. Non. Stop. Puking.

Doc came in and said PUSH.

At this point in my baby-delivering endeavor, I haven’t eaten or drank in 24 hours and I’m running on 2 hours of sleep. I tell her I’m too sick, too tired, too thirsty to push. I wasn’t even fully dilated yet. She told me to try pushing for 4 hours. If that didn’t work, we’d have to have a C-Section.

My doctor left the room to birth another baby and I stayed with just my husband and pushed for 4.5 hours. When my doctor finally returned I told her I was having the C-Section, and I fell asleep, sleeping through contractions.

As they wheeled me into a bright room, I heard my mom yelling “what happened? Is she dead?!” Watching her daughter seemingly passed out on a gurney with no baby. The door closed and about 1,000 people ran in and started strapping me to a table. I’m still puking at this point so having my head strapped down while trying to vomit presented a new problem....

Enter foreign anesthesiologist who begins yelling in his native language and pausing to ask me if I’d been given medicine yet. I had no idea. I was just tying to sleep and not choke on my own vomit.

I felt a knife touching my stomach and I yelled “I can feel that”

She didn’t care. She couldn’t wait and kept going.

Then he was here. The 1,000 people in the room all went silent at once and all I could hear was him. His sweet cry, I recognized his voice immediately. It was the voice I’d been dreaming about. My son was here.

A nurse brought him to me and I kissed that face I had been dreaming of, and I fell asleep. I woke up to my husband with my son in his arms. The battle was over. He was here and he was healthy.

8lbs 4oz, 24 inches long. Pure perfection in a little pink body. Mine. All mine.