My daughter was due on February 21, 2000, my 29 birthday. She is our first baby. On Saturday, January 22, my husband and I went to a store to exchange some duplicate gifts we had received at a baby shower the night before. I was four weeks before my due date. I had not had any Braxton-Hicks contractions up to this point and was a little disappointed. As we were pulling into the parking lot, I felt something like a wave over my stomach. I remember that one of my friends had described contractions as a wave-like sensation. When I felt my stomach with my hand, it was extremely hard. I didn't think much of it because I was soooo big. However, I noticed later that it did not feel quite as hard. I started paying closer attention and realized I was having contractions. I could not feel them inside, but could feel them by pressing on my stomach. They seemed pretty irregular, but it was hard to tell when I was having them.

I wasn't concerned because I thought they were the Braxton-Hicks contractions. The next morning, I still had them. By the afternoon, 24 hours later, I was still having them, so I called my doctor. He told me some ways to try to stop them at home. I tried them all, and Sunday evening, was still contracting. My doctor said to go ahead to the hospital and let them check me over.

When we got to the hospital, they hooked me up to the monitor and found my contractions were two minutes apart. They gave me a drug to try to stop the contractions because I was so early, however, it did not work. I was dilated to 1 centimeter, but they did not know if that was a recent change or if I had been dilated for some time. They sent me home and said to call my doctor first thing in the morning. They also put me on bed rest for at least two days. I was excited to get a couple of days off of work. I went to the doctor at 9 a.m. on Monday morning. I didn't even take my bag because I just knew he was going to send me home. My husband did not go to the doctor because we didn't think it was a big deal.

The doctor found that I was dilated to 3 centimeters and said that I needed to go to the hospital right away. I asked if I could go home to get my bag and he said no. I was shocked! I certainly didn't think I would be having a baby on this day!

As soon as I got to the hospital, I informed the nurse that I wanted an epidural. Every time they came in the room after that, I reminded them that I wanted the epidural. I had heard too many stories of nurses forgetting that you want an epidural until it's too late to get one. My doctor came and broke my water about 1 p.m. I finally got my epidural about 2 p.m., which was just in time because I was getting really uncomfortable with the contractions. I was about 4 centimeters by this point. Finally, about 6 p.m. I was about 6 centimeters. At 7 p.m. I had progressed to 9 centimeters and was ready to start pushing. They called the doctor to come deliver my baby. She was born at 8 p.m. after about 30 minutes of pushing. Her grandmothers arrived from out-of-town about 10 minutes before she was born. Just in the nick of time to hear her first cry.

The epidural was wonderful. I felt no pain at all, but I could feel her moving through the birth canal. She aspirated some amniotic fluid during the birth process so they took her to NICU right after the delivery. I got to hold her for about 10 seconds.

After they finished sewing me up, I thought I would be able to go see her in NICU, but couldn't because it was closed to visitors due to another very sick baby. I was so tired, I just wanted to go to sleep. They wouldn't give me my pain medication until I ate something (hadn't eaten since 7 a.m. that morning). My family offered to go pick something up for me to eat. An hour later, they still had not returned and I was in a lot of pain after the epidural wore off. Finally, a nurse gave me some crackers so I could take my medicine. My family waltzed in an hour and half later with my food. They had decided to eat at the restaurant!

The labor and delivery was a piece of cake. The worst part was afterward, when the epidural wore off. They left the Pitocin going in the IV to make my uterus contract to stop the bleeding. I did not realize that this was a contraction. Boy, did it hurt. Then the massaging the abdomen really hurt. No one warned me about this.

I finally went to sleep and couldn't see my daughter until about 1:30 a.m. It was hard to see her hooked up to wires and machines. She stayed in NICU for four days. It was awful. However, she's 1 year old and doing great now. You would never know she was premature or got off to such a rocky start! We're now expecting our second child in August 2001.