I’ve loved reading everyone else’s birth stories, and never ever thought I’d have a story like this one, so I wanted to share it for all those mom’s that have a hard time really believing that anything can happen!!! Long story, with pics at the end 😁

My due date was 7/3, this was my second birth. I’d been having real contractions on and off for a week, but they never got really strong or kept going more than an hour or two. I had dilated to 3 1/2 cm, 70% effaced, and had had a couple hours of medium contractions during neighborhood BBQ and fireworks the evening of 7/4, but they faded away. We were scheduled to go in for an induction at 6:00am the next morning on 7/5 and figured that’s what we would be doing.

7/5 - woke up abruptly in the night with a strong contraction. At first, in my semi-asleep state, I thought is was just another medium intensity contraction, but it grew into a pretty strong one where I had to breathe and focus through it. I turned on my phone to check the time - 3:30am - and switched into my contraction timer to wait and see if another one would come. About 12 min later, I can feel the tightening start up in my lower back and around to by belly for what becomes an even stronger contraction. Another 12 min go by and the next contraction is strong enough to push me out of bed which wakes up my husband. At this point I’m standing at the side of the bed, leaning over the bed, labor-breathing and rocking my hips. My husband asks if I’m okay and I tell him that I don’t think we’re going to make to 6:00am... He leaps out of bed, runs downstairs to start the coffee pot, and sprints back upstairs into the shower. Never seen him move so fast 😆 I quickly change my clothes and hobble downstairs, contractions still going strong and now only 7 to 8 min apart. At this point, the contractions are so strong they force me to stop, lean over a counter/chair/bed or whatever is nearby and breathe, groan, and rock through them. I realize this is definitely the big show, so I call my Aunt who has agreed to come watch our 3 yr old and 12 yr old boys while we go to the hospital. She was expecting the call at 5:30 though, not at 4:11am... it’s been 41 min since my first contraction and at this point we’ve already dropped to contractions less than 5 min apart... Hubby is running all of our hospital bags and things out to the car, and rubbing my back through contractions in the kitchen while we wait for my Aunt. At 4:30 she calls to say she’s having trouble getting the dog back in the house, and I ask her to just leave the dog in the yard and come now please! Down to 3-4 min apart... I waddle outside to the driveway to wait and have another couple contractions leaned over the hood of our car. At this point I realize that things are getting out of control because the pain is so intense. In the back of my mind, the stories I’d read of women having precipitous births in their cars or bathrooms start flashing into my memory, but I’m desperately trying to ignore them and tell myself that is not what’s happening!!! With my son, my water had broken and started my active labor. He was also sunny side up, so I had terrible back labor that went slower with over 3 hours of pushing and an epidural to get him born, so I just kept thinking that this is how typical active labor without broken water or back labor was meant to feel... yeah, I was in denial. 😳 😆 My Aunt arrived at 4:40, took one look at me as I’m contracting and climbing into our car, and asked how far the hospital is. I said 10 min, and she said “ok, so still faster to drive than to call 911”. That probably should have clued me in to what was happening lol. We speed off down our street and enter the script of a typical movie. 😂 My husband is driving our little commuter car like a race car around corners and through stop lights. Thank goodness it was 4:40am the day after the 4th of July so there were no cars on the road - everyone else was home sleeping off their hangovers! At one point I had a contraction in the car that literally felt like one of those alien movies where some creature is trying to burst out of your body. I heard myself scream and started clawing at the window frame like some kind of caged animal. I just had the overwhelming need to stand up! I was trying to breathe through, but these were more intense than anything I’d ever felt before. Looking back now, I realize I was probably in transition... we arrive to the hospital in 9 minutes, my husband tries to help me but I’m already out and speed-waddling to the labor and delivery door entrance. Hubby sprints ahead to get us paged in, and once we’re in the doors I’m hit with another contraction. I can hear the security guard saying that the reception nurse is helping another patient but I’m welcome to sit or use a wheelchair... “or stand right there!” he semi-jokes as I drop my purse on the floor and bend over, hands on knees, groaning and heavy breathing. I looked up at him as the contraction faded and just said “is there someone else that can help us”. A nurse rushes down to help get my name and weight while my husband gets his security badge - it’s marked 4:51am. I have another contraction, moaning and groaning much more loudly while standing at reception (a part of me is totally mortified by this - I am not typically a person who likes to be center of attention!) I don’t wait to answer more questions or sign anything, just start walking down the hall not even knowing where I’m going. Suddenly there are several nurses around me, they try to put me in a chair and ask who my dr is but the last thing I want is to sit down again. I hear one of them call out “room 20” and I drop my purse again as I’m forced to lean over the handrail in the hallway with another contraction. I can’t handle this one and hear a scream rip out of me. I think I managed to frantically get out “I’m feeling a lot of pressure” and someone yells “room 18 is open!” As that contraction fades, I head into Room 18, helped by a nurse on each side, and I desperately tell them I had planned to have an epidural. One of them said “it’s probably too late for that” and I’m pretty sure I whimpered something like “I don’t wanna do this”. Another of the nurses (there must be 6 or 7 by now) is telling me to get undressed and on the table, I peel off my shirt and my husband rips off my skirt and undies, and I am so beyond caring that I’m naked accept for my bra in a room full of people. For some reason I’m more embarrassed that I keep screaming! I climb up on hands and knees on the table and somehow manage to lay down. What seems to be the head nurse comes to my side and looks down at me - I ask again if there is anything they can give me through an IV or something - still desperately clinging some hope of avoiding a fully natural birth because I’m terrified of the pain of pushing, tearing, being stitched back up....She calmly looks me in the eyes and says “it’s too late hon. Even if we could give you something, this baby will be here before it takes effect.” At the same time I vaguely realize another nurse is checking my progress and calls out “she’s complete!” to the room. Two other nurses are attempting to get a blood draw and put in my IV line and I’m trying to hold my arms still for them while screams tear out of my throat and my entire abdomen feels like it’s being ripped in two and clamped in a vice somehow simultaneously. They finally get the IV line in, and my husband - who was quietly pacing circles in the corner - is called over to my other side, and the head nurse tells me the on-call dr is on his way and that if I try to push with my next contraction it will feel better. I don’t believe that anything could ever make this feel better, but as the next wave rushes in I push and YES! Amazingly, it does feel better. Still the most intense and painful thing I’ve ever experienced, but it’s like I suddenly feel like I’m working with my body and I finally really realize this baby is coming now, I’m doing this all natural, and that I’ve been fighting against my body this entire time. The nurse and my husband hold my hands and remind me to breathe during the next contraction and a doctor I’ve never met arrives and takes his place in the seat of honor 😆 . He said that the baby is still high but coming quick. The nurse tells me to lift my head and curl myself down over my belly in my next push, so I take a deep breathe, squeeze my eyes shut, grab my knees, curl up and push with all my might. I hear my husband encouraging me, and the doctor says something like “oh! Yes like that, here’s the head! One more like that and she’ll be around the corner and we’ll have a baby!” Rather than stopping, I just take another quick breath and keep pushing - I’m groaning and making a noise I’m sure I’ve never made before and I can feel her head, shoulders, and body twist and slide out. Immediate relief. They lift her onto my belly - crying softly already - and the doctor calls out “5:05 am”. 14 minutes since we walked through the hospital doors and an hour and a half since I had woken up.

After that, things went quickly and slowly somehow at the same time. A few minutes later the doctor asked my husband if he wanted to cut the cord. It’s a strange feeling feeling it tug a little since the other end is still inside me. The nurses are suctioning her a bit, and take her away for a minute to make sure she gets a nice healthy cry going. Layla Janet was born in a hurry - 8 lbs, 2 oz, 20 1/2 inches long - a beautiful baby girl who completes our family!