Amia Lei was born at 8:06 PM after 6 hours of labor and only 6 minutes of pushing. My contractions were excruciating, and crept up on me fast and I was dilating very slowly so the doctors thought. When it was time to push, the doctors were very surprised because they thought I would be in labor for a couple more hours. No epidural. I kept pushing it off because of the stories I’ve heard about it. Kept telling myself the contractions only last a couple seconds, and you went this long without just keep going. I think my doctor and nurses were very surprised I didn’t get an epidural because of the amount of pitocin they had given me and they also gave me medicine to soften my cervix and start the contractions. When I told my doctor that I’m gonna try to not get an epidural she kinda just chuckled and laughed and patted me on the back and said “Good luck with that.” I pushed Amia out in 6 minutes. The moment I held her everything changed for me. I knew I couldn’t love anyone or anything more than her. All the pain that I was feeling just a couple minutes before went away because I was so overfilled with joy that she was actually there, on my chest. That moment was the happiest moment of my life. After a couple hours of her life, she started to breathe fast and hard. My nurse noticed and called in the doctor to check her out. Then he called another doctor and no one was really telling me if she was going to be okay or not. They had to take her down to their nursery to be extra cautious. And still I wasn’t getting any answers. They had to call another hospital that was about 30-45 min away from where we were at to transport her because they had a NICU. It was scary for me. I was worried and exhausted and had no clue if she was going to be okay or not. They wouldn’t let me go to the other hospital with her in the ambulance because I had just given birth a couple hours before, and they were only allowing me to be discharged the day after. I tried to keep it together, watching them work on her and she’s crying and I can’t do anything to comfort her and make sure she’s okay. They ambulance was taking a long time to get there. The doctors kept telling me “They’re on their way. They’re 15 minutes away. They’re 5 minutes away.” Time just kept delaying, and I kept getting more worried. As soon as they arrived, they attached her to all of their equipment and took her to their hospital. I asked them to call me as soon as they got to hospital and let me know how she was. And I never received any phone calls. I only slept for about 2 hours, and as soon as I woke up my nurse tried to get me out of there so I could get to her. When I got there, she was hooked up to so many wires and there was so many tubes and she was so uncomfortable. She was crying and I couldn’t do anything but let the doctors and nurses do their job. She had to have a CPAP machine hooked up her, a feeding tube and so many other things. She wasn’t getting enough pressure in her lungs to be able to breathe normally. I thought it could’ve possibly been my fault for drinking soda or eating junk food while I was pregnant, but the doctor assured me that not even the hardest drugs could’ve done this to her. After just three days, she had the CPAP removed from her, the doctors were very impressed with how quickly she recovered. They said that it is very rare that they see a baby on a CPAP machine progress as fast as she did. I was so proud of her. As the days went by, she just continued to get better and better. More wires and tubes came off, and now she gets to come home with me tomorrow. She’s eating so well and just sleeping as a newborn should. I spend so much time with her and love every second of it even if she’s just sleeping. She made me such a proud momma.