I'll start from the very beginning. I met my now husband when I was 16 and he was 22. We started dating and four months later I discovered I was pregnant at only 17. Everyone was upset because neither of us had good jobs and we both still lived with our parents. Well, from all the stress of being pregnant and not knowing what to do and crying all day and night for two weeks, I had a miscarriage. I had really wanted the baby because I knew that I loved the father very much but I also knew that we were not financially prepared for this child.

When I graduated high school, my fiance and I moved in together with plans to be married May 30 of 2000. We had both come very far. We both had good promising careers and we had a nice apartment to live in. Well, on May 15, 2000, I found out that I was once again pregnant, but this time everyone was overjoyed. We got married on May 30 as planned and I went for my first prenatal appointment the very next day. I was given a due date of January 24, 2001.

The pregnancy went pretty well, I changed doctors in the beginning because after my second appointment I realized I didn't like the group of doctors I was with. Then in my sixth month I went for the gestational diabetes test. I had failed the one-hour glucose test. I was so upset. I went for the three-hour test and was sure that I would once again fail, but I did not, I passed just fine.

All was well again, except that in only my eighth month I had gained a total of 48 pounds. On December 1 I was only almost 33 weeks and I noticed that I was leaking fluid. I thought that I was just having trouble controlling my bladder. I wanted to be safe than sorry so I went to the doctor on December 4. She checked me and also agreed that I was just having trouble controlling my bladder (how embarrassing). So the next week on the 11th, one day short of 34 weeks, I was helping my husband clean our fish tank after a hard Monday of work, when I felt like I totally peed myself. My eyes popped out of my head and I said to my husband that I think I peed myself. He just started to laugh at me because of what happened the previous week. So, I went to the bathroom and changed my underwear and pants.

The night proceeded as normal, we ate dinner and I took a shower and got ready for bed. I went to the bathroom and wiped myself and on the tissue was a mucousy liquid, I got scared that it was my mucous plug so I called my mom, and also told her about my peeing myself, she told me to call the doctor. Well, I knew that the doctor would tell me to go to the hospital because it was after office hours. So, I called the doctor and told my husband to get ready because we were going in.

We left the house about 10 minutes after 9 p.m. and it was a 30-minute ride. That was when the pain started. They started to come regularly right away. They were four minutes apart. I was complaining to my husband but we both still had our doubts that this was really it because it was too soon. So when one of the pains didn't come in four minutes my husband looked at the clock and said, See look it has been four minutes and no pain, it is all in your head. One minute later I was yelling at him that it was not all in my head, it was all in my back.

We got to the hospital and went to admitting where we filled out papers for an excruciating half-hour because I had not done pre-admission because it wasn't supposed to be this soon. Then we went to PET where I waited another excruciating half-hour to be checked to see if I really was in labor. At this time my husband and I were still not convinced that this was the real thing. The resident came in and did his exam and said, Well your water did break and you will be having a baby either tonight or tomorrow, you are dilated to 3 centimeters already and I can see the baby's hair. I started to cry and shake violently and my husband turned very pale and said that he had to go out for a cigarette. The resident tried to calm me; he said that the baby should be fine, that she wasn't that early and that she would probably only have to stay in the hospital for a little longer than usual.

I was then moved to the labor and delivery room. My nurse was horrible; when I told her that I needed something for the pain she said that it was too soon and that they would get MUCH MUCH worse, and that this could go on for a week because they wouldn't stop my contractions because my water broke, but they wouldn't do anything to help them along because I was early. Well, my mom, dad, and brother came and my mom yelled at the nurse for saying such things to me. Then my husband went out and got doughnuts for everyone and gave some to the nurses, so then they were real nice. The next time I said that I needed something for the pain, she checked me and sent right away for the anesthesiologist. I was only 3.5 centimeters but I was completely effaced so they gave me my epidural.

I know that all births are different but I give a lot of credit to the women that give birth with no epidural because I couldn't do it. I thought I was going to die until I had my epidural, it was a gift from God, I thought the anesthesiologist was God.

After the epidural was in place (about 3:30, 4 a.m.) my mom, dad, and brother left and my husband and I tried to get some sleep. My husband fell fast asleep and was snoring but I couldn't manage to sleep. The nurse kept coming in to check my monitors and other little annoying things. Then at about 5:30 a.m. the baby's heartbeat dropped really low and lots of people came in and gave me oxygen -- my husband slept through this whole thing. After I got the oxygen the heartbeat went back to normal.

Then I felt like I had to have a bowel movement and I told the nurse, she said that they don't allow that because you may be pushing out the baby too early. So she had them raise my epidural because I was only 4 centimeters. Then only about a half-hour later I felt like I had to go again and I told her, they checked me again and I was 8 centimeters. My husband then woke up because I was yelling again because they turned off my epidural so that I would be able to push with the pain.

At 8 a.m. on December 12, 2000 my doctor finally arrived and I was told it was time to start pushing, boy was that painful. Toward the end when the doctor started to break down the bed I knew the baby was really about to come so I gave one last hard push and her head was out, then a break and an even harder push and out came the rest of her. At 8:55 a.m. my beautiful 5-pound, 11-ounce, l8.5-inch Angelina Nicole was born. She cried right away, they cleaned her off and let me hold her for a minute, but then she had to go the NICU for monitoring. Her Apgars were 9 and 9.

I got out of the hospital two days later and she got out two days after me because she had become a little jaundiced. She is 11 days old today and I can't believe I ever lived without her. I love her so much for someone I have only known 11 days. Her daddy and I are so happy to have the best Christmas present ever!!!

Please feel free to e-mail me with any pregnancy or mommy questions. Klpnm00@yahoo.com.