I was very much planning to have a natural birth – no medication, no pain relief, no episiotomy, etc. I had done a lot of research and had hired an OB practice that was supportive of natural birth, and I also hired a doula (natural birth supporter) to be with my husband and me in the delivery room.

My pregnancy went pretty well except for an episode of hyperemesis gravidarium (HG) in my 5th month that landed me in the hospital with dehydration. I only gained 33 pounds with the pregnancy and was in good shape, but toward the end my blood pressure started to spike so I was placed on partial bed rest.

I started having early labor signs in my 37th week (bloody show, contractions, etc.) and even went into the hospital in my 38th week twice with false alarms, but active labor did not start until three days before my due date. (And I waited a long time before going to the hospital because I thought it was yet another false alarm.)

My contractions started around noon on Saturday and I did not go to the hospital until 2 a.m. on Sunday. When I finally arrived at the hospital with my doula, the nurse told me I was already at 6 centimeters dilated and would probably deliver within a couple of hours. But then more than 12 hours later, I was only at 7.5 centimeters, and I remained stuck at 7.5 centimeters for another two hours. By then I'd been in transition for almost four hours with no progress at all, and the pain was getting unbearable.

My OB tried breaking my waters to speed things up, but this just made the pain worse without dilating me any further. I managed the excruciating pain this way for another hour – again, no progress. My OB told me that she'd exhausted all other options and it was time to break out the Pitocin. I agreed to Pitocin only if I could have an epidural – and considered myself a failure because I had been unable to deliver completely naturally.

I was screaming and writhing in pain so badly that three nurses, my doula and my husband had to hold me still so the epidural could be placed. By this point, I'd been in labor for almost 27 hours with no medication whatsoever and I was exhausted.

Then, within 10 minutes of placing the epidural, I dilated to 10 centimeters. My son was born about 10 minutes later. The nurses told me afterward that the reason my labor progress slowed down and became so excruciating was because my baby had turned sideways and would not come out; apparently, my OB had been ordering the operating room prepped for my Cesarean section when she ordered the Pitocin and epidural. The Pitocin/epidural combo was what it took to get my baby turned back around the right way so he could be born (i.e., it relaxed the uterine muscles). I had also torn inside and out, which required many stitches, but these healed up well with no problems in about three weeks.

Once the labor was over and the nurses were cleaning me up, I was still sad that I'd had to cave for the epidural, but the head nurse smiled (and she was a hard-core, old-school no-drugs Lamaze instructor) and she told me that getting the epidural was the best decision in my case, because it had literally saved me from going under the knife. She explained that for very difficult and problematic labors like mine, epidurals are merciful – and also added that in the old days, I probably would have died in childbirth without the extra help.

All turned out well and my son was beautiful. Now when people ask me about my labor, I tell them I had a 27-hour, 98 percent natural delivery.