In my 9th month of my second pregnancy, the doctors told my husband and me several times that our baby boy was of a large size. In my 39th week of pregnancy, the doctors decided to finally induce due to the fact that the baby just could not move any more.

I was put in the hospital with a dilation of 1 centimeter, and they started the Pitocin at about 9 a.m. As I lay in that hospital bed with a constant drip of Pitocin for more than 12 hours, my labor increased slowly. However, I was totally confident on the doctors taking care of me.

Finally, at about 9:30 p.m., the doctors had me start pushing, still with the Pitocin drip. I pushed so long and so hard that I thought my boy would never come. But at 12:03 a.m. Joshua was born! I was so excited, a mother again! Joshua weighed 9 pounds, 6 ounces and was 21 inches long (BIG).

Joshua went straight to the NICU due to his low blood sugars. For three days we waited to hold him without being hooked to all those cords and wires. Finally he tested fine, and we were both discharged.

At my final doctor's checkup I mentioned that my chest and back were really sore. The doctor told me I had a long, hard delivery, and I was probably just bruised. We went home. Two nights later I could not sleep. I could not get comfortable: back, side, tummy, sitting up – nothing felt right.

That morning I was doing laundry in the basement. When I went to climb the stairs I could hardly make it up two stairs, not to mention 12. By the time I did make it to the top I was so out of breath it hurt. I was rushed to the hospital, and they had me in the ER for over 11 hours. The doctors did every test known to man on me (thinking that it was something to do with my heart). Finally a doctor decided that I must have double pneumonia and was ready to send me home.

Then another doctor decided that because I did not have a fever and I was not coughing up fluid that it was not pneumonia, but rather pulmonary edema. My right lung was full, the left lung three quarters full of the Pitocin. If I had waited too much longer to get to the hospital that morning I could have died. This is all thanks to the wonderful drug called Pitocin. The doctor told me that this has happened to 1 in 100,000 women. And lucky me, I was the 1.

Women out there: Please be aware that being on Pitocin for too long is harmful to not only you but the baby too. Joshua is now almost 2 and a complete joy. However, after all that, he will be my last!