My due date was January 31 and when I woke up on January 26 I was having contractions. They were sporadic ranging from every 10 to 30 minutes. I went about my day and had a doctors appointment that afternoon. When they checked me I was 1 cm dilated and my cervix was closed but very thin.  Within two hours of my doctors appointment the contractions were starting to become more regular, at that point they were about every 11 to 12 minutes. I labored at home for a few hours as they continued getting closer and closer together.  I headed to the hospital at 6:15 PM when they were coming every eight minutes apart and had been for a consecutive almost 2 hours.  They put me in the triage room checked me and I was still 1 cm. They monitored my contractions.  By about 730, the contractions were coming every 4 to 5 minutes apart. By about 9, they were coming every 2 to 3 minutes apart and lasting approximately 45 seconds. The midwife checked me again and told me I was still 1 cm dilated and that if I did not make progress she would send me home. The contraction pain had become much more intense by that point so she gave me an option of getting a dose of morphine, which would help with the pain but could slow my contractions down. I really wanted to be completely drug-free so I fought against that for about another hour until I couldn't take it anymore.  I finally asked for the morphine at about 10. Despite having morphine and these contractions coming every 2 to 3 minutes, this midwife told me that she would probably send me home that night (she was out of her damn mind if she thought I was going home with contractions every 2 to 3 minutes after having to get some morphine and I told her so LOL).  It was almost 1030 by the time she gave me the morphine and that allowed me to sleep for about 30 minutes pain-free.  The morphine did slow down my contractions to every six minutes. She actually told the people that would be in the delivery room with me to go home because there would not be a baby that night. And she told me she would likely be discharging me. She made that threat despite not having checked me in a couple hours! Anyway, the second the morphine wore off, the contractions came back with a vengeance! They were coming every 2 to 3 minutes. It stayed that way for a little bit and then next thing I knew they were coming about every minute and lasting for 45 seconds. The pain had become unbearable so my cousin went out to find the nurse. A different nurse came in and checked me and told me I was 7 cm!! I told her I wanted epidural so she said she would go with the doctor and they would be right back in. A doctor came back in about 5 to 10 minutes later and she checked me as well.  She told me I was 10 cm and that I could go ahead and push rather than waiting for the anesthesiologist to do the epidural. I pushed for about 10 to 15 minutes and then at 12:20 am, the love of my life was born weighing 8 pounds 5 ounces: Amari Zaire Bland.