At around 3 o'clock on Thursday, the 1st of April, I started feeling like I had a bad stomach ache. I'd been to the doctor's in the morning and we had decided that I was going to be induced on Monday, the 5th of April. I guess I was pretty excited about that because I really was tired of being pregnant.

So this stomach ache continued through the rest of the afternoon. The cramping wasn't that painful, and I was tired of hoping I was in labor so I figured that it couldn't be labor now. I mean, why should it be different from any other day? I did message my husband and tell him that my stomach hurt but I doubted I was in labor.

I was alone at home until about 5 p.m. when my husband arrived home with my sister and her husband. My sister was coming over for supper because I'd told her I was so tired I didn't think I could cook.

During the evening she noticed I kept going to the toilet, so I told her about the stomach ache and the cramping I was having. She pulled my hubby aside and told him she thought I was in labor. I doubted it totally because I wanted so badly to go into labor that I figured that I was trying to turn the stomach ache into a big thing.

After a while, though, my sister got me to sit down and tried to time the contractions. They were about five minutes apart and lasting about a minute. This was around 9:40 p.m. and the stomach cramps, which I now realized (but still not willing to admit it) must be contractions, were getting pretty painful and harder to sit through.

My sister told my husband that he should take me into the birthing center. I vehemently refused to go because I didn't want to be embarrassed when they sent me home for coming in when I wasn't even in labor. I told them I wanted to sleep and that if the pains continued we could go into the birthing center at around midnight.

At 10 p.m. my sister said, No, you are going in now. I'd started to have a bloody show by then and the contractions were hurting so I agreed to go.

We got to the hospital at 10:30 p.m. and after sitting (I was barely able to do this; I was hurting pretty badly by now) down to fill in forms they took us through to the examination/labor room.

The midwife asked me to lie down and then because I was wearing a full dress, she asked me to take it and my pants off. Well lying down I felt pretty comfortable and couldn't (or maybe didn't want to) get up to take anything off.

The nurse asked my husband to help, so he took off the dress and my pants, which were pretty bloody by then, and I was left lying on my side in my bra. I didn't even care or feel shy by then. I just felt so sore I couldn't be bothered.

Lying on the bed, I had a contraction while she checked me. If I had known what an internal exam felt like I wouldn't have let her. She said I was 3 centimeters dilated and fully effaced. I couldn't believe it; I mean, I couldn't actually believe I was on my way to giving birth.

I was still feeling pretty sore during contractions so I didn't actually have any strength to panic. Then she said the magic words: Would you like a painkiller? I almost dropped at her feet groveling with gratitude.

She offered Pethidine, which I hadn't been sure I wanted up until now. Minutes later she came to me with this needle and for the first time in the evening I panicked. I'm terrified of needles, so I was like, Whoa, hold on, and tried in vain to scoot off the bed.

She said, I thought you wanted a painkiller. So I said, Yes, but not in my butt. She said, But that's the only place we can put it. I argued with her that it would work just as good in my upper arm and she said, Well, that's not how it works, and turned around to put the needle away.

I was hit by another contraction just then so I practically yelled for her to come back and prick me wherever she liked, eyeballs included.

Then the midwife waited for about 30 minutes for the Pethidine to settle in and then dropped the next bombshell: Should we do the enema now? I was feeling pretty good by now, sort of floating above the pain although I could still feel it, but those words brought me back down to earth.

No thanks, I mumbled wishing she would leave me alone so I could sleep through another lull in the contractions. Well my dear husband, (who'd been there all along), said, Darling, you said that if you refused the enema that I should urge you (in other words, force) to go through with it. So I said, OK, let's do it. I was feeling pretty high by then so I figured I wouldn't notice much. Boy, was I wrong!

A few weeks before I'd asked a cousin who happens to be a nurse how they do an enema and she'd described it to me in detail. They basically shove a tube up your extremities after using KY jelly to make it more comfortable (yeah, right) and then using a funnel they pour like enough soapy water down there.

The nurse didn't get to pour much with me because I jumped off the bed running after a few minutes. When I got back from the um, enema effects, I asked her if there were any more options for pain relief and she offered gas.

I said, Bring it on, girlfriend, so she hooked me up with the gas and I could have kissed her. I was still feeling the contractions and the pain, but now I had the gas mask to concentrate on and boy, was I sucking away.

Like she hadn't caused enough extra pain with her internal exams, she decided to break my waters (after consulting with my husband – I was too spaced out to listen). I felt this warm gush, and minutes later the pain elevated to another level – I wish I could describe it, but this you'll have to feel on your own.

It was about 11:30 p.m. when I was lying back on the bed (an hour or so since we'd come in) when the nurse came back in (poor darling) and said she needed to check me again.

I don't think so, I told her and scrunched up my legs, pulling them up as close to my stomach as I could. She fought with me for a bit, then stepped back and waited for the next contraction to hit. As soon as she saw me gripping onto the gas mask and heard me start my guttural moaning she jumped in there. I couldn't stop her because I was concentrating on the pain and the next thing I knew she said, You're 8 centimeters.

I couldn't believe it. We'd only been there for a little over an hour and I was so much closer to having the baby. But again I didn't panic. I just felt pretty out of it and never actually thought of the actual birth.

An hour later at 12:30 a.m. I sat up and said, I have to push. She said, No, you can't push. I started yelling that it wasn't exactly like I was pushing and that my body was just doing it on its own.

She told me to lie back down so that she could check me again. I lost control for a bit and screamed at her not to. I told her I couldn't handle another internal and that if she did I would vomit on her.

I guess she's heard that one a lot because she went on with the internal despite my threat of assault. Her next words almost sent me over the edge: You're still 8 centimeters, but we will call your doctor now. Ha, call the doctor, and expect me to wait, I don't think so. I carried on letting my body push irregardless of what they were all screaming at me, husband (who was scared to death for me) included.

A few minutes later I realized that I could feel something in my cervix. In my dazed state I couldn't figure out what that funny bulge could be. According to my husband, I had this blank look on my face until it suddenly dawned on me what it was: the baby's head!

Now the only thing that I was absolutely totally terrified of was the part when the head would emerge and the burning sensation everyone spoke of would start – so I panicked!

At that point everything seemed to happen so fast. The nurse and my husband were telling me not to push. I was totally panicking because I knew pushing the head out was going to hurt.

My doctor arrived at the same time. She told the nurse to take the gas mask from me. I wasn't having that. The gas mask was like my last avenue of any hope of not dying during child birth so, I'm ashamed to say, I wrestled with the nurse. When she realized she wasn't going to win they just pulled the gas connecter out of the wall.

Before I had time to complain my doctor got my attention and told me that she wanted me to semi recline, hold onto my shins and when the next contraction came, to push down as hard as I could.

I decided to do this and just get the baby out of there, so I did just that. I pushed down as hard as I could during the contraction and then stopped. My doctor was like, No, carry on pushing. The contraction is still going. So I pushed hard and boy, oh boy did it burn and hurt. But I was determined to get it over and done with during that one push.

She shot out like a bullet. One minute I was pushing and the next thing this grey something shot out of me and started crying. And suddenly all the pain was gone and I was just relieved that she was crying and that the pain was gone. I just slumped back on the bed.

My husband got to cut her cord and then they suctioned her a little and then gave her bundled up to my husband. He came over to me with her, but I refused to hold her just then.

I was still pretty spaced out and felt weak and was afraid that I would drop her. I was also pretty shocked to discover how light her skin was. She had pale pink skin, which I had never expected because both my husband and I are pretty dark (turns out it comes from his paternal grandma, who is really light skinned).

The placenta then decided to refuse to come out. My doctor tugged at the cord a little, but the cord was so thin it started to give way. So after waiting a bit, she decided to remove it manually.

She shoved her hand up there, moved her hand around a bit and pulled out the placenta. That hurt; that hurt really badly. But I was too exhausted to be too upset and I just turned toward my husband to watch him bonding with his daughter.

After admiring my daughter for a bit, my doctor brought me back to earth. We need to do some repair work down here. I couldn't believe it. I felt so OK and no pain, so how could I have torn?

She injected the area (perineal area) with local anesthetic and then put in two stitches. That was OK. I felt nothing. Then she's like, Oh, there is another tear on your left labia. It will need two stitches, but the area hasn't been anesthetized. Well she put in those two stitches and I felt everything. That was the only time tears came to my eyes ... but I didn't cry.

After that the rest wasn't so bad. Everyone (there were a lot of people in the room when Baby was born but can't remember who everyone was) left the room, leaving behind one nurse who asked me if I wanted some tea. That was the best tea I've ever had.

After that, she pressed down on my stomach a bit to get rid of blood clots. I let her do it for as long as I could, then begged her to stop because it hurt. She threw a blanket over me, then changed Baby into her clothes. After that she cleaned me up and helped me to dress.

She then helped me into a wheelchair, put Baby Girl on my lap and pushed us up to our room. My husband stayed for a while and then I needed to sleep and Baby was asleep so he left because he was practically asleep on his feet. Maita was 2.6 kilograms and had Apgar scores of 8 then 10.

Now apparently, and I say apparently as some stuff I don't remember, I was very talkative during the whole labor. My husband says I was asking the nurses for their names. He says that I said to him, This is bad Baby, very, very bad over and over again to him. I also asked my husband to call my mother (which he didn't do because my mom has a problem with her blood pressure and I was apparently sounding pitiful and would have only upset her).

I also did a lot of guttural breathing while I labored and even shouted at a nurse who came in to tell me I was making a racquet. He said I said to her, Now that's what I don't like – GET OUT! and she backed up.

He says the funniest was when I was telling the nurse that I wasn't pushing, that it was my body doing its own thing and that I personally was doing exactly as they asked and not pushing. I can see the humor in that statement now, but at the time I was totally serious and really trying to get them to understand me.

It was bad, very, very bad (ha, ha, ha), but at the end it was worth what I got in return. Maita is such a beautiful baby girl I really can't believe she is mine. I have to keep checking that she is there.