At my 33-week appointment, my doctor checked me and found that my cervix was 90 percent effaced and that my baby's head was at +1 station, so I was advised to start my maternity leave early and go straight to bed. I spent a very boring six weeks on the couch in my living room reading books and talking on the phone. For the first couple of weeks, I thought that every time I got up, I'd deliver the baby, but as my due date drew nearer and nothing happened, I began to think my doctor had been mistaken.

About a week before my due date, I had false labor which felt a lot like the real McCoy: strong contractions that made my whole stomach hard, back ache and a general peculiar feeling. I was at my childbirth class when this began and actually had to lie down, scaring everyone half to death. Our childbirth instructor thought that labor was starting, too. Mysteriously, however, the signs disappeared a few hours later.

The day after my due date (March 23), I woke up feeling sluggish and huge and sick of being pregnant. I also felt quite uncomfortable by what felt like a back strain or pulled ligament in my right side, above my hip. I assumed I had hurt myself while preparing for my husband's birthday party the day before.

As the day wore on, the pain in my side grew sharper and slowly spread around to my lower back. This took all day long to happen. I felt lousy and was irritated.

My friend Shelley came by to visit around 5 p.m. As she sat across from me in my living room, I couldn't get comfortable on the couch, no matter how hard I tried. I squirmed and squirmed, tried pillows, tried stretching my legs out, putting my feet up, walking around. I found myself interrupting her several times to complain about my back ache. When she got up to leave, I was elated. Saying goodbye to her at the front door seemed to take forever. I thought she was torturing me. I kept smiling and saying goodbye, and she just wouldn't leave! I was almost desperate when she finally turned and I was able to close the door after her.

I decided I needed a bath and drew a nice hot one. I soaked in the tub for a long time and felt a little better. After drying off, I went to bed and turned on the TV to watch the Oscars. I spoke to my sister Kerry and my friend Erin on the telephone during this time. Kerry asked me who'd won best actress and even though I had just seen that part, I couldn't remember.

My husband, Luis, came home from work about 9 p.m., and greeted me from the doorway to the bedroom. I said, "I don't feel well; please make me dinner." When he turned and went to the kitchen, I started crying and yelled, "You didn't kiss me hello!" Later, he said that's when he knew something unusual was afoot.

Luis brought me a bowl of tofu, broccoli and rice. I ate everything and Luis came to bed. I tossed and turned but could not get comfortable. Finally, I went to the bathroom and – as had been happening all day long – found that I had a lot of discharge and had to wipe and wipe to get dry. (Silly me, I thought the mucous plug was a plug, like a piece of hard mucous resembling rubber.)

I went to the bathroom again, and noticed some blood streaking the discharge (which of course was my mucous plug disintegrating). That was the famous bloody show and I knew I was in labor. What a realization. I was excited, scared, and even unsure whether it was the real thing or another false alarm, or if this meant I would have the baby that night, or in three days.

I sort of rocked in the bed moaning for a while and then decided to take another bath. Luis kept saying, "Try to sleep. You'll need your strength for tomorrow."

I drew my second bath of the night. Luis lit candles for me and brought me a big glass of Gatorade and then went back to bed! I was angry about this and tried to get him to stay with me in the bathroom, but he was so convinced I wasn't really in labor yet and wanted so badly to go to sleep (so he could help me tomorrow, he said) that I finally let him go, deciding it would be easier without him with the attitude he had.

I had been having contractions for some time (that was the moaning I was doing) but didn't realize they were real contractions because when I'd had my false labor two weeks before, my contractions had been hard and had made my whole belly hard. These did nothing to my belly, but the pain was coming in waves, rhythmically and was intense.

I soaked in the tub for a long time, replacing the water when it grew cool, and toning loudly but in a low voice (with my mouth wide open the way our labor coach had taught me) when the pain came. I kept drinking Gatorade. By now, it was about midnight.

When I got sick of the bath, I returned to bed. Luis was very awake now. I kept toning with the contractions, which were more intense and frequent. When they started, I stared into Luis' eyes while he held my hands, squeezing the acupressure point between my thumb and index finger. If he so much as blinked, I became furious and my toning would grow high-pitched and frantic, like little yelps. When this happened, Luis reminded me to go low, to not panic, to stay relaxed and keep breathing.

After another hour or two of this, Luis drew my third bath of the night. I went into the hot water gratefully. The contractions were quite painful now and my toning was very loud. In between, when I could talk, I said, "Luis, call Jeanne or Lisa" (our doulas, who work as a team) and he did.

Even though Jeanne could hear my toning in the background, she must not have realized how advanced my labor was. She asked Luis how far apart the contractions were, but we weren't timing them because (as silly as it seems now) since I couldn't feel my stomach getting hard, I didn't think they were real contractions, but some kind of intense pre- or early labor. This was what we told Jeanne. She said she'd be on her way, but she didn't arrive for another hour and a half.

Only a few minutes into my third bath, I suddenly had a frantic urge to be out. I flew out of the tub and back into the bedroom streaming water and fell onto the bed with another contraction. Luis began to tone with me, which helped me to keep my sounds low and strong. My voice wanted to climb high, and when it did my body tensed up and I began to panic, yelping like a trapped animal. The pain was so intense I had the urge to crawl away from it, to hide from it somehow, under a chair, in a corner.

When Jeanne walked into the bedroom at 5:45 a.m. (Luis had left the front door open for her), I was in the middle of a contraction, stark naked on top of the bed, with Luis squeezing my hands as hard as he could, staring into my eyes and toning with me. Jeanne said, "How beautiful!" and I could have killed her.

She put her stuff down. When the contraction passed, she said, "OK, I think it's time for a change in position." I was horrified. The thought of moving, of walking, was abhorrent to me. I was curled up in a little ball, waiting for the next one to hit. Jeanne and Luis helped me up. I said, a little hysterically, "Where, where are we going to go?" and Jeanne responded, "Well, we could go outside and look at the Harvest Moon." And again I could have decked her! I was extremely irritated by this and felt she didn't understand how rotten I felt (and maybe she didn't; she hadn't had a baby of her own at that time).

On our way into the living room, I suddenly felt nauseous and knew I had to throw up. I fell to the floor on my hands and knees and began to throw up dinner and tons of Gatorade. It was a mess, but I didn't care at that point. Just as I was finishing throwing up, my water burst with great force and I felt this gushing through my body. It was very frightening, and I began to whimper and panic, crawling around in all the muck. I don't know how, but Jeanne and Luis were on top of things because things were cleaned up quickly and I didn't even notice.

I went into a kind of quiet place of fear and dread because I knew from my reading that contractions are usually even more intense and painful after the water breaks, and I was waiting for it to hit. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to any of us to call the doctor, but it hadn't. It was all I could do to handle my labor, but I was handling it, and I didn't want to be interrupted.

I labored on my hands and knees in the living room for what seemed like many hours. My knees were sore and raw from the floor, but I couldn't bear to move. Luis put pillows under my knees when I would finally let him. I was right: My contractions were harder after the water broke. Lisa pushed on my lower back with what felt like all her weight, but it wasn't enough (I must have been having back labor). I couldn't get enough of that. Blood and mucous were streaming down my legs. Labor was progressing. It was all I could do to handle the pain.

I began to wonder when someone would mention the hospital, but no one did. And suddenly I knew I did not want to go, no matter what. I got up the nerve to say in a small voice, "You're not going to make me go to the hospital, are you?" There was a pause. Then Jeanne said, carefully, "Well, that was your plan, wasn't it?" I said, "I don't want to go. Please don't make me go to the hospital. Please." Jeanne said, "OK."

She got up to leave me, which panicked me. I cried out for her to come back. I realized later she was preparing for a home birth. She got a stack of towels in the oven, turned up the heat in the house, put scissors in a pot of water to boil and probably myriad other preparations.

I was desperate for her, for her weight on my back, for her support and reassurance. Then there was an odd but wonderful little lull when the contractions seemed to slow down. I was able to rest for a brief time and I think I even slept for a few moments until Jeanne said, "I think it's time for a change in position," and again I was horrified and upset by this.

I allowed her to pull me up to a squatting position. I had felt no desire to push, but with the next contraction, I suddenly realized I was pushing against my will. My toning was coming out in stutters; I could not make my voice even or smooth as I was bearing down and trying not to. I screamed, "I'm pushing! I don't know if I'm ready to push! I can't push if I'm not dilated!"

Jeanne asked Luis for a flashlight and then left me again to look for it. When she came back she checked me. She said, "I think you're complete," to which I shot back, "Think?! Think's not good enough!" Then she said firmly, "You're complete," and the pushing stage began.

I pushed for 45 minutes. It was very uncomfortable, which was a disappointment as I'd heard that was the most satisfying part of labor. It felt like my anus was bulging out, which was embarrassing and scary and uncomfortable. Also there was a sort of burning inside my vagina as the baby was coming down. And an incredible amount of pressure. I was getting tired. Luis was holding me up under the arms; Jeanne was massaging my perineum to prepare it to stretch to accommodate the baby's head.

After some time, Jeanne held a mirror between my legs and told me to look down. It was dim in the room. The early morning light was filtering in through the curtains. I didn't see anything but redness. I thought it was the baby's head though and said, "Mmm Hmm, OK." But suddenly as another contraction hit, a yellow surface appeared in my vagina! I was shocked. I was also afraid for the first time for the safety of my baby. I realized with a shock that I had no idea if he was alive since we had no monitoring at all. The yellow color bothered me. (It turned out it was just vernix; he was covered with the stuff! His back, as Jeanne said, "Looked like a stucco wall when he was delivered.") But I was scared enough to begin to push harder.

I felt burning and tearing at the bottom of my vagina and at the top near my clitoris and stopped. In the next two contractions, my baby boy came tumbling out, all bumpy inside me, all elbows and knees, and suddenly Jeanne was holding him high in the air! He was blueish and had his arms flung out. Then he took his first breath and I watched in utter amazement as he pinked up just beautifully and bleated like a little lamb. The umbilical cord was gorgeous – strong and thick and wound round in a couple of spirals and of the most magical colors: blue and green, iridescent purple, like some kind of gorgeous sea creature.

Jeanne passed the baby to Luis, but then the cord pulled, and Jeanne said (with tension in her voice for the first time all night), "The cord's short! Pass him back to me; don't pull on the cord!" Luis passed my son back over me and then Jeanne passed him under my legs to Luis, who held him, wrapped in a warm towel.

My placenta hadn't come yet, and Jeanne was concerned. She called 911 just in case of a placental abruption. I didn't notice or care. I was relieved the pain was over and was quite exhausted. Jeanne tried to get me to push the placenta out, and I sort of tried, but was very half-hearted about it. Then I managed to deliver it, barely noticing. I think Jeanne caught it in a big stainless steel mixing bowl.

I must have been drifting in consciousness. I don't remember Luis cutting the umbilical cord, although I seem to remember it happening around me, hearing it going on.

Suddenly paramedics and firemen were in the house, (I was basically still naked and spread-eagle on the floor with about eight strapping young men in uniform gathered around me), but I didn't care.

Ryan was born at 7:45 a.m. on March 24, 1998, an 8-pound baby boy with an Apgar of 9, who took in his environment calmly and intently. A couple of the paramedics held him and oohed and aahed (not noticing that I needed stitches – which I didn't get until that evening!) They were so taken with the baby; it was cute.

We turned down the offer of a ride to the hospital since everyone was basically OK (we didn't know about my wounds yet). After a quick bath, during which Jeanne tried to get me to pee (I couldn't even though my bladder was full – a common problem after labor), I went to bed with my baby and my husband. We ate Chinese food all day and marveled at our little boy, born into his home in a gentle, natural birth on the first clear, sunny morning after weeks of rain.

Needless to say, I intend to have all of my babies at home. The experience was profoundly moving and empowering. Although it was the most challenging, difficult and painful thing I've ever done, I treasure the memories with all my heart.