This whole pregnancy was crazy easy, and super smooth. I never really had morning sickness, I didn't have any of the typical pregnancy complaints. No stretch Marks either! I was pretty active the whole time with 3 step sons 7, 5, and 2. On the 23 I was 39 weeks and a day, I woke up at 7:30 a.m. to the bed being a little wet, so I got up and immediately felt a small gush down my legs. I trickled all the way to the bathroom where I peed and discovered my mucus plug was coming out. I was pretty sure my water had broken, but I wanted to make sure so I laid back down to see what happened. About 10 minutes later I had my first "real" contraction, which was basically a slightly worse than normal period cramp. I continued to leak water so we called the doctors and got to the hospital around 915. They did 4 tests to see if my water was leaking, 1 was negative, 2 were positive, and 1 was inconclusive. They also checked me and I went from not being dilated at all the day before to being almost a 3 and 90% effaced. I was still leaking a lot, so they had me walk for a couple hours and then a doctor came to do an ultrasound to measure amniotic fluid. As soon as he came in he was half assed accusing me of lying because he didnt really think I was leaking. They measured the fluid and I had 11.9 AFI so he said I wasnt leaking since there was still a good amount around the baby. They sent me home while I was already having contractions roughly 5 minutes apart. By the time we got home, around 2 p.m., they were every 3 or 4 minutes and getting stronger. My boyfriend had to go to work, so he left around 445 when my contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart and strong enough I was staying in bed at this point and couldn't really talk. They would last anywhere from 30 seconds to almost 3 minutes and took my breath away. A few hours later i called him and said he needed to come home so we could go to the hospital cause i was having the baby tonight. He finally got home around 9, the contractions were getting unbearable. I went to the car and waited for him to get the boys packed up. We were at the hospital and in our room by 10. The nurse took forever asking me questions so i finally just bluntly asked for medication, which she gave me this stuff in my i.v. to "take the edge off." It made me feel so tired and loopy, but I still felt the pain, it just felt far away and easier to deal with. I was 100% effaced and at 6 cm by now. By 12 I was getting my epidural and my family was at the hospital. The epidural was AWESOME. I dont know why I was so apprehensive about it. I wanted to do it naturally, because I feel like it's what my body was made for I should be able to handle it. But as my dad put it, they didnt have the convenience of modern medicine before, if they'd had a choice they would have taken the pain away too! So by the time the epidural kicks in, I'm at an 8, and they try to turn me over on my other side to get me to dilate more and the babys heart rate dips, wo they put me back and he keeps going down, and down. Finally they position me basically sitting straight up and the bed had transformed into a chair. His heart rate goes up and the doctor puts an internal monitor on his head. Then he says alright let's see how good you can push, we're gonna practice. I practice 3 pushes ahs he says let's do this. I push for maybe 5 minutes, his head comes out but his cord is around his neck. They unwrap it, I keep pushing. His shoulder is stuck on my pubic bone, so the nurse helping us basically puts all her weight on my abdomen and I feel his shoulder pop loose and he just slides right out. My placenta delivered itself an hour later, it was HUGE. Gunner was born at 2:01 a.m. 7 pounds 8 ounces, 20 and a half inches long and he is absolutely perfect. I was afraid of getting induced and thought I was going to have to for the convenience of knowing for sure when he was going to be here, but I got my wish of going into labor naturally, and not needing any medicine to induce me or anything!