First off I am only 18. I was not ready to have a baby. It is against my religion to have sex before marriage, let alone have a baby before marriage.

Oh well. My labor started early in the morning on August 3. I didn't think anything of it because I thought that my baby was just kicking me once again. About 20 minutes passed and I realized that these pains were contractions. I nudged my boyfriend awake and told him that I thought that I was going into labor.

We had agreed that we were not going to be having the baby in the hospital so we arranged for a midwife to help us throughout the birth. Bob, my boyfriend, ran to go and call the midwife, as I was trying to breathe through the contractions. She arrived within minutes and by the time she was there I felt like I was going to die.

She came in and checked me and told me that my water had not broken all the way yet and asked me if it was OK if she broke it all the way. Man, did that hurt like hell. I screamed the whole time.

After that I went from 3 centimeters dilated to 10 within an hour's time. Nancy, the midwife, came over to me and told me that it was time to start pushing. I pushed for what seemed like three hours, but was only 30 minutes. My baby did not want to come out of me. My boyfriend was behind me holding me up so that I could push against him to try and push my baby out. Nothing seemed to work.

Finally Nancy said, "I can see the head!" That made me even more determined. I pushed with all my might and within minutes her head was out. I didn't care what happened next, I just wanted to hold my baby in my arms. I pushed again and the next thing I knew my baby was being brought up to my arms with my boyfriend saying, "It's a girl!"

My Alexis Marie was born into the world after only two hours of pushing and waiting! Thanks for reading my long story!