I knew before I was ever pregnant that I would never be able to deliver a child naturally due to having a heart condition since birth. The stress and strain of carrying a child would be too much, let alone labor.

When I found out I was pregnant I had a mix of emotions. I was excited and absolutely petrified as I was not sure what my family or the baby's father would say. Plus, having always heard from my cardiologist that I shouldn't have kids didn't help.

I went immediately to my OB/GYN as well as my cardiologist and was labeled a high-risk pregnancy from the start. I wanted to go ahead and plan my Cesarean section date, but the doctor kept telling me I had to wait until closer to my third trimester.

I was due March 15 (or 18, depending on which doctor you asked), and I was finally able to schedule my C-section for the morning of March 9 – a Friday, what better way to start the weekend and then his father could be there for the birth and the weekend.

At the end of February I was seeing my doctor weekly and had gone into the hospital twice with Braxton Hicks contractions. The second time they sent me home and told me to rest, and then called me the next day and asked me to come back in and re-do the test I had done Friday. I was already at the hospital because my brother and his girlfriend had just had their baby early (we had the same due date), so I walked down the hall, did the test (which the doctor deemed fine) and went home.

Monday rolled around and I went to work to finish training the temp that would be filling in for me while on maternity leave. I got home late that day and had been absolutely miserable the whole day.

I was watching a TV show and eating dinner when my mother asked me if I noticed that I was having contractions. I said, "Yeah, yeah, they will just send me home. It's nothing." My mother continued to watch my stomach while I continued to watch the TV and finish my dinner of grilled salmon and green beans.

Eventually my mother said, "You need to call the doctor because your contractions are three minutes apart." I said, "OK fine" and I called. The nurse on the other end said to go to the hospital and then said, "Congratulations, you are having a baby," something that all the other times I had called had never been stated.

I finished my TV show and my dinner. Then I called my son's father and told him that he might need to meet me at the hospital, but I would call him and let him know.

We arrived at the hospital and the nurse called my doctor (who was not on call but had written in my chart to be called if I came in), who told her to check my cervix then and again in one hour and call her back. So they check and I was dilated 3 centimeters.

The nurse immediately hooked me up to a million machines and then came back in one hour to check again. This time I was dilated 4 centimeters and she went to call my doctor. She came back and said that I was going to be having a baby that night (it was 11 p.m. at this point) and to take off my jewelry.

I was shaking and broke out in a cold sweat (despite it being a million degrees in the room). I was completely prepared for a C-section, had read everything I could on it as well as taken a class, and yet I was terrified. My son's father arrived, as did my grandparents, and off I went.

I did the spinal, which was not bad at all, and I finally stopped shaking. My son's father came in. He was hyperventilating and needed a nurse of his own. At one point the assistant doctor had to get up on the table and sit on me to help get my son out, who was stuck due to his large size. It felt like an elephant was on my chest, and I remember not being able to breathe.

Shortly after my breath returned and my son was flashed up over the sheet that separated my head from the rest of my body. He was crying softly and then I heard him squeal at the warmer. They brought him over and he sounded like a lamb, with a constant "baa" sound, which continued for the next 38 hours (mostly due to his lungs being sticky from being early and a C-section baby). Other than the lungs and jaundice he was a healthy baby boy born at 12:42 a.m. on the 27th of February (a Tuesday, not a bad day either, really).

Thank God he was a C-section. The fact that he was stuck already says a lot. He was 8 pounds, 15 ounces, 21 inches with a giant head. He was and continues to be off the growth chart in all areas!