Labor stories

awww wow i started reading these stories last nite, but it got to 1ish and had to go to sleep but cam eback today and boy am i glad i did. they are amazing, i dont have any children yet so i cant put down what happened!!!!!! but thanks so much for sharing them they are amazing xxx

 

Sophie Romi Marie

born 6 lbs, 6 oz at 8:24 am on July 31st
19 in long

labor story:

woke up last night at 1 in the morning with really bad contraction, and they kept coming and coming so i called my midwifes office 2 hours away, and im like, should i come down? she's like, well...you should wait till there's bloody show, well, an hour later with consistent contractions but no bloody show i was like fuck it, im in labor, and im heading down there...so i grab my best friend and her 7 month old and my dad and we all head down to midwife headquaters 2 hours away. as soon as i get there, she's like, your 6 cm dialated...so i hopped my happy little butt in the jacuzi and bore my contractions, .......till they got really really bad then i was like fuck it im going to lay in the bed. so i did and that's when they really hit. My hips were KILLING me through those contractions... so they massaged me and layed ice packs on me and held onto my death grip through those contractions. and the whole time i was in denial, 'there's no baby in me' 'how the HELL is a baby gonna fit through that itty bitty hole? but, she did, and god...there is a love like no other.

perfectly healthy babygirl, and no stitches for me!

@

 

Is this today that you had your baby????? And your already up and on the computer?????

Wow.....I don't think I even knew my own name the day I had my kids. I still haven't done my birth story from 4 months ago....
What a trooper!

Well, congratulations! She's beautiful. Enjoy....

 

oh wow, i read all the storys and now i'm sitting here crying! haha you ladies truly are heroes! your children are so very lucky to have such great mommys
*hugs you all*

 

i woke up at 3 am with contractions on the day that I had an appointment with my obgyn, and when i saw her, she said i was only dialated to a 1, so i went home, they got more stronger, and they were 5 minutes apart, and i was in alot of pain, so i went back, and i still wasnt dialating, but because i was hurting, they had me go to the hospital overnight on morphine. The morphine didnt actually help the contractions though. They sent me home, cause i STILL wasnt dialating, so I labored at home for a while and went back to the hospital to get checked TWO more times, and I STILL wouldnt dialate. I didnt understand how i could be having contractions every 3-5 minutes but not dialate. I was in labor for 3 1/2 days when I agreed to have them break my water. when the epidural started to wear off and and i was FINALLy a 10, it was time to push, and i pushed and pushed for almost 2 hours, and he wouldnt even go into the birth canal, because he was so big, and i am small build, so they had to rush me to the OR for a C-section. I had general anethesia, so i was completely out for the birth, in fact. when i woke up., i couldnt go see my new son, so my mother went to the nursery with a video camera and came back and i watched him on the video camera. It really sucked that i couldnt see him for a long time, and i couldnt hold him till the 2nd day in the hospital cause i was doped up on anethesia and narcotics they gave me, but Now im a proud mother of a gorgeous boy 8.3 oz 21 1/2 inches tall

 

on december 20th (my mother in law's birthday) i went into labor at like 1am. i was having contractions every 10 min and getting very excited (his due date was the 17th). So i woke up my husband at 10am and we went to his parents for his mom's birthday cake. i called the doc later in the afternoon and he said to stop by so he could check me.

i had been dialated about 2cm for a few days before and it hadn't changed so he said it was false labor and sent me home. well the "false labor" continued for two more days and i was still having contractions every 10 min! i did pretty good breathing through the pain (it was very hard to sleep though!)

so finally on december 22 at 3am i was exausted and decided to go back to the hospital. as soon as we got in the car my contractions jumped to every 6min. My husband and i had a labor plan (i was determined to do it drug free with as little interfearance from the doc as possible) but when we got to the hospital the nurces hooked me up to the monitor and wouldn't let me walk around they were asking me to fill out all these forms and it was to much. i decided to get the epidural and they gave me pitocin because i was still only 3cm. then i fell asleep for three hours!

When i woke up i was 8cm and everyone started to get ready. i was so happy! i pushed for three and a half hours. (which by the way is the most satisfying feeling in the world!) and finally my little boy was born at 330 in the afternoon. we stayed at the hospital for a few days (they even let my husband stay for christmas eve) and brought my little one home on christmas morning!

 

Wow StarFly! You made me cry!!!!
I have a story similar to your's, but I haven't been able to write it yet. I'm still very upset about it and cry everytime I think about it.
I, too, feel cheated. Although I did feel the contractions for a bit, I also had to be knocked out for my c-section. Wasn't able to see my baby's birth.

Well, I'm bawling again. I'll be able to write about it someday.

 

I was induced...... I went in on August 8th, and they gave me the first thing (i can't remember what it's called- to thin the cervix) at 8, I had really bad contractions at midnight so they skipped that dose and gave me demerol for pain. They gave me another dose of the cervix thinner at 4. At 8 the doctor broke my water and started me on Pitocin. I was dialated to 4 cm at that time. I got my epidural at around 9:30 (I can't handle that kind of pain) and they upped my pitocin.. well Trey's heart rate went really really low so they threw the oxygen mask on me and dropped the pitocin back down. I'm not sure what time it was when I called the nurse in saying I was having the pressure and she said it was time to push. He got stuck in my hips and that took the longest.. the nurse had just called for the suction thingy and I guess me and Trey both did a "no way" because the next push he was through and on his way out. He was born at 11:24 at 7 lbs 1 ounce and 20 inches long!

 

Nothing about this birth went as planned. i was going to try the red raspberry leaf tea trick to get things moving along (i'd been having pretty regular, painless contractions for the last two evenings), but decided i should wait until Dale came home from work at 11pm Tuesday night, just in case things went quicker than expected (talk about optimism!). At right about 11, my "painless" contractions became something more without the tea, and an hour later, i was convinced it was time to get to the hospital. We got the kids into the van, and headed for Nana's house. By the time we dropped the kids off, there was absolutely no doubt this was the real thing, it was just like my other two labors, except that they started all of the sudden and woke me early in the morning. No matter, i'm a veteran after all, and off to the hospital we went.

By the time we got there, it was about 1:00 am. The contractions were about 3 minutes apart, 2 minutes long, and definately taking my breath away. i was so excited! The lady who checked us into OB looked me over and said "you're in labor huh...well you're smiling, that's not a good sign." Grr, i didn't really like her attitude, but she was nice besides that. i informed her that this WAS my third child, and i knew i was in labor. She asked a million questions, and informed me that i had to have a fetal monitor on THE WHOLE TIME, up until the birth, and that did NOT make me happy. I had these wonderful visions of walking around during my labor, trying different positions (during my other births, i didn't know there were such things). I made a big fuss (i couldn't get comfortable at all while still keeping the stupid things in place, and i had to unplug them anyway every half-hour or so to pee), and when my "real" nurse came, after wearing it for 2 hours, she said i could take it off for awhile, though it was against hospital policy, NOT recommended, and i had to sign something releasing them of all liability. Whatever.

During that whole fiasco, my contractions started slowing down, and it was discovered that i had only dilated to 3 1/2 cm, and baby's head had not yet dropped (the nurse could barely even find it). They were still quite painful, but not so close together, and shorter. i was tired and starting to feel a little stupid for coming since things were not moving along, and though noone said anything, i could tell the nurses were catching on. i started to get VERY frustrated, and told Dale i was totally discouraged, and ready to go home--after all, i HAD done this twice before, and should have known if i was in labor or not. He reminded me that we'd been there for hours, and i was just tired. If things were slowing down, that was why--he also reminded me that with the others, i had had a good night's sleep before the contractions started. Fair enough, but it did not make me feel better.

Apparently it was already shift-change, and another nurse came in to talk to me. i was very relieved to see it was the awesome nurse who had been there during my NST drama--the one who had already seen me have a break-down, so though embarassed that she was seeing me cry yet again, i was delighted that at least it wasn't someone else. She put her arm around me (i'm not a touchy-feely person, but the gesture was at least a caring one, which i appreciated), and asked what i wanted to do (though still noone had mentioned it, i knew she meant about my progress-free "labor"). She actually remembered from our conversation over a week before that we didn't want to induce or anything, and she said she'd stand behind us and tell the doc there was no way she'd try to talk us into something we didn't want. Bless that woman. BUT regardless of her wanting us to be happy, she needed to hook me back up to the fetal monitor to make sure baby wasn't distressed (i was still having contractions, they just weren't doing anything), and the doc was probably going to suggest pitocin to "augment" the labor, since it was already started. I told her i wanted to go home, and she understood. She confided that she wasn't comfortable speeding up my labor when i was obviously very tired and unhappy, but we needed to see about the baby first.

The doc came in, and it was determined that baby was still fine and responsive (besides the fact that she was obviously taking a nap, lol), but i was dilated to nearly 5cm. Doc, to my surprise, said it was my choice if i wanted to go home, but considering that i live an hour from the hospital, and it was baby #3, it probably wasn't a good idea to leave when i might not make it back in time. Dale and i talked awhile about it, and finally decided for once the doc might be right. The distance was the biggest thing that would have kept us from trying a homebirth anyway. I felt even more defeated at that point, and the nurse reassured us that this was just to help; my body had already decided it was time, it just needed a little help to finish the job. i reasoned that it wouldn't tramatize the baby any more, and might actually help, since we'd already gotten this far.

So back to the fetal monitor and IV (which was started and screwed up twice--ouch!) and to add insult to injury, i had to have the stupid automatic blood-pressure cuff on too, which HURTS and is just obnoxious! Just the thought of all this stuff attached to me made it very difficult to stay positive. So, onward we went. After about an hour, the contractions got really strong again. Though they were more intense now, they were actually less painful, because i was able to kind of focus some intent on moving baby's head down, instead of literally feeling like we were running into a brick wall. At this point i was feeling optimistic again, pleased that i was handling the pain so well. i refused medication several times. i was almost ready to push!

The nurse went over the whole drill with me, where to hold on, how to push--you know, all that stuff that seems so obvious, but really isn't in the moment, and you can never seem to recall, no matter how many times you've done it (or is that just me?). The doc checked baby's head again, and it was coming down a bit, but it still wasn't where it needed to be, and my cervix was still pretty hard. He broke my water, after several attempts and much effort (read that as pain, from my side). It wasn't quite time for the "real" pushing, but i got the ok to push a bit with my contractions to get the head down, and open the cervix some more. i didn't exactly feel in control at that point, but Dale was VERY supportive, reminding me to take deep breaths (as silly and cliche as that sounds, it really is necessary to be reminded) and focus on getting the head down.

The doc said to let him know when i felt the intense need to push. Wait a minute...how was i supposed to be able to tell? Holy crap! i don't know! All i know is that it hurts like a bitch, and i can't remember to breathe! This is where i started getting upset again. I vaguely recalled my other births, feeling like i was being told a million things by a million people, and none of it made sense. Ah, but it was so simple, just to breathe when they say to breathe, push when they say to push until i feel like i can't anymore, and the head comes, and the rest follows, and all is well...yeah, THAT'S how it always went! Just the head!

Alright, i knew i could do this! The doc yells at me not to arch my back, though i don't realize that's what i've done. Oops! Just one mistake, and no problem, Dale has already put one arm back there to be sure i don't do it next time, and his other on my shoulder to remind me to lean that way instead. I love that man, he thinks of everything Time to push again, and i can't understand what everyone's saying, but i know where Dale's hands are, and they're guiding me, and his voice is reminding me to take deep breaths. I don't know what i'd do without him. Ugh, i keep messing up, i can't keep pushing until they count to 10, i always stop around 7 and forget and take another breath. Alright, next time will be right.i don't know how many times i've started over, but i'm really tired, every time i hear less and less of what these people are saying (how many are there again? Dale, that nice nurse--those are the two voices i listen to--that stupid doctor, the blond one that reminds me of someone i went to school with, or maybe someone on tv...there are others, but i dont remember how many, and i don't hear them anyway. Oh great, i'm screaming and making stupid noises. How very dignified of me! Sheesh, i hope there's noone else checking in right now, because if i was, and i heard that coming from down the hall, i'd turn around and run away! Sheesh, you'd think i'd never done this before, i always seemed to control myself with the others. I say something to Dale about it, and he reminds me that i had drugs with the others, and this is so very different. I guess he's right. I realize at about this time that i haven't opened my eyes in about an hour. i bet that's some freudian thing, if i can't see it, it isn't happening, LMFAO! i'm still screaming like an idiot, like that helps anything. Oh well, maybe it will be over soon?

People are getting very impatient. They're tired of listening to me, listening to me and watching me not do as i was told. I'm messing this up with every contraction now. I don't think i've pushed all the way to 10 YET. i'm really no good at this birth thing. I still haven't figured out where to hold on, and how to pull myself forward without arching my back. Dale and the nurse are doing it for me now, i'm just doing the pushing, and there's some mention that the head is coming now, but i really don't feel like it will ever be over. With Ryvre and Willow both, i felt the head, willed it through, and the rest of the baby just slid out. This time, the people said the head is through, but it hurts more instead of less. It's just STUCK there, not coming out. I apparently didn't push far enough. i don't know how many more times i had to push; finally it was out, but i still had to push the shoulders out. I thought the shoulders were supposed to come out with the rest of the baby, but apparently not now. The doc makes some comment about how huge those shoulders are. You know, he really isn't a very encouraging sort of person. The blond needs me to push this baby out, just one more push. Yeah honey, we all need this baby out.

She finally comes though, several pushes after i thought for sure she was just stuck and more stuck, and they'd have to cut me in half or something (i shudder to think what they actually do if the baby is already there, and an episiotomy or tear isn't enough, but that's where i thought i was) to get her out. i just didn't care what they had to do to me, i was soooo done with this whole process, lol. Good thing i got her out finally. But i felt like the biggest, loudest, most obnoixious (and i won't even mention the undignified mess i made, and we're not talking you're regular birth stuff "don't worry honey, i'm sure that's mostly amniotic fluid anyway" my ass; i actually ruined the doc's shoes--of course, he totally deserved that, but still...) and least capable person ever. Soooo not what i had in mind. And everyone kept congratulating me, telling me i did so "great" like i hadn't just turned into a monster of the underworld.

The doc stabbed me all over to "numb" the area before he sewed this massive tear i had (something tells me i'm not brave enough to take a look at what is actually meant by that, haha, i had episiotomies with the others, but something about this one feels much more ominous, and much closer to an area i'd prefer the process of childbirth to leave alone). But i felt it all anyway, so it was actually double-pointless. Anyway, that last part probably wasn't necessary to the story, but there you have it. I'll skip all the recovery stuff at least, lol.

So there's my yuckie birth story, lol, every time someone acts impressed that i did it with no drugs, or Dale mentions that i did a "really great job" i just laugh. Our little girl is really beautiful, and i'm very glad she's finally here, but i do not want to remember how she got here, lol. I've had something like 2 hours of sleep (broke up into 10-minute intervals, lol)since Monday night, lol, so i'm going to end this here. Sorry it wasn't more eloquent, but if you were really curious, that's how it went. Sorry if you were hoping for something more entertaining; it was just your average, boring-ass hospital birth. Not what i wanted, but what i got.

 

My daughter was supposed to be due on February 7, 2005. She still wasnt out on the 11 (which was my next doctors appointment). So they told me to come back in on the 14 and have a non stress test and an ultra sound. So I did all that and they scheduled me to be induced. I had to be at the hospital at 4:00 on the 16.

I got to the hospital and they got me into my room and filled out all the paper work and crap. Around 6 pm the midwife came in and put a pill in me to help my cervix to open. They told me it hardly ever works with just one, so theyd do another one at 11. But by 8 I was already have some contractions, so they didnt do another one. They gave me an ambien pill and said they would start the pitocin at 6 am.

So I got woken up at 6 am and the started the pitocin. I almost immediatley started having bad contractions. I had to stay in the bed or around it the whole time because i had a fetal monitor on. I didnt have any drugs, no epidural or anything so I felt it all. By 3 i though i was gonna die. It hurt so bad cause I wanted to push so bad and I couldnt.

Finally at 4 the midwife came and said that it was time for me to push. So I did and it took only about 30 minutes to push my baby out. She was born at 4:28 on February 17, 2005. Her name is Lor Melanie Rosa and she was 7 pounds 6 ounces and 19 inches long.

 

These stories are amazing!! I myself suffered from a miscarriage, but it's stories like these that give me hope and keep me optimistic for the future! Love and peace to you all!

 

Ever read the book Baby Catcher? It's pretty cool. The Cry and the Covenant is also extremely interesting. Some people say not to read the second one while pregnant. I did though, guess it's up to you. Anyone know anything about water births. I'm six months along and hoping to have one. If you've had one or know someone who has I'd be very interested to know how it goes.

 

hey sister Sparrow!
i just found a website www.waterbirthinfo.com/
it has water birth stories & even a link to a documentary. hope you find some good info there

 

Jim wasn't due until the 7th but I'd been having BH's on and off for a week and they started to feel different. I knew he was going to come soon. I woke up on Saturday morning energized. I sat up in the bed and felt a little warm gush. I checked my underpants and they were full of mucus. It was much runnier than the discharge I'd had all along, so I knew something was up. Sure enough, a few times an hour I'd have another gush. We were pretty sure it wasn't amniotic fluid so we didn't call the midwife. By about 9 that evening the discharge had become a fluid and included some blood. I was also getting pretty crampy, but no regular contractions. We called the midwife just to let them know what was up before it got too late. She told us to go to bed and get some rest. We put on the plastic sheets and went to bed but since I'd had a pretty long nap late in the afternoon I couldn't stay down. By about 3 in the morning I was up, cleaning the apartment, setting things right for the birth. I paced the floor, jiggling myself and massaging my belly, trying to make the contractions pick up. If my water was broken, I wanted to get going and not poke along and have to be transferred to the hospital! Susan (the CNMW) called at 9am to see how we were progressing. She decided to stop by and test the fluid to find out if it was amniotic or not. Around the time she called I decided it was time to call the people who would be present at the birth, my Stepmom Janice and a dear friend, Angie. They arrived shortly before the midwife, around 10:30. The fluid did turn out to be amniotic, so now we knew we had to get the contractions I had been having to be more consistent. Susan suggested we take a long walk, so we walked in the park around our building for about an hour, and also up and down the 12 flights of stairs leading to our apartment. By this point I was pretty darn uncomfortable, but I so didn't want to go to the hospital, so I really pushed myself walking the stairs. Then we holed up in the bedroom and did nipple stimulation, whiched helped some but was really more annoying to me then anything. Susan had gone to Whole foods to get some things and returned at about Noon. She started me on Blue and Black Cohosh. The Native Americans used it to stimulate labor. All of these things would begin to help, and then my labor would just peter out again. I did the stairs again. Finally, (7 or 8ish?) I took some castor oil. That really helped. So now I'm having contraction 3-5 mins apart. REALLY intense ones. I labored like this for hours. I found that standing under the shower really helped. I would turn the water on really hot then switch it over to freezing cold. I labored like that for hours. Finally they decided to check and found I was only dialated to about 3. I was getting pretty tired now. I labored some more in the shower and decided to get out. Susan felt my belly and thought the baby might be face up and that was slowing things a bit. So I got down on my hands and knees crossed my arms and leaned my face into them, with my butt up in the air. Susan took a long piece of cloth and wrapped it around my belly. She jiggled my belly back and forth with it ( sort of like you rub it a towel back and forth on your backside to dry it off). That was sheer HELL! That with contractions was so painful I couldn't stand it. That went on for 45 minutes or so before I gave up. So now it's around 4 in the morning. They check again, I'm at 5. At this point we're talking about going to the birth center to try Cervadil to see if it'll finish dilating me. Susan suddenly feels a bag of for-waters (sp?). Susan decides to break them to see if my contractions pick up. They did! Now there's a little bit of meconium in the waters though. I labored on for hours and at around 9am Monday morning, they check one last time. I'm still at 5cm. At this point I'm so tired I can barely speak, and my eyes were crossing! The meconium was getting darker and my waters have been broken for well over 24 hours. So we made the decision to go to the hospital. Susan called ahead and they started an IV. We got there around 10ish. We saw the OB and she prescribed pitocin and an epidural. I wasn't too happy about this but at that point it was necesary to avoid a c-section. I took a long nap and by 7pm it was time to push. Half an hour later we had our 8lb 13 oz. son! He breathed meconium so they snatched him away and pounded him on his back and stuck a horrible tube down his throat. I'm crying through all this, asking when I could have him. They let me hold him for all of 30 seconds before they whisked him away. DH followed him to they nursery and they kicked my support team out. So I was left ALL alone, bawling my eyes out. After an hour or so, I get into a private room. I sent DH to get baby, he came back saying they wouldn't let him have him for another 30 minutes. I counted the minutes and sent him back, I told him not to come back without my baby! The night nurse was EVIL. They weren't happy with us wanting him with us all the time and asking so many questions. They gave us dirty looks when I scootched over and Steve hopped in the bed to snuggle with us. She even bitched me out for taking off his t-shirt to snuggle skin to skin with him! (the baby!) We got out of there as soon as possible, after 24 hours. I'm still really sad about having to deliver in the hospital. The doctor was great but the rest sucked. I wanted Steve to cut the cord. We wanted to plant the placenta with a tree, I didn't even get to see it. Most off all I'm sad my baby had such a rough start, getting pounded on, choking on a tube and then being taken away from me. I'm glad he's healthy though and I can't wait to try for baby 2's home birth!

 

P.S. All this was kind of a blur, so I may have the timeline off a bit.

 

Jazz, I'm sorry you didn't get the birth you wanted. It sounds like you did everything you could (and more) to accomplish this. Sometimes we mamas need a little help, and that's what hospitals are for. Your baby needed to be born there, and your body was being very wise and intuitive about not letting him out.

And you most likely will have a home birth the next time. Whatever caused your first baby to not want to come out probably won't happen again. Make sure you have mourned the loss of your home birth and come to peace with it. People really don't understand how devastating it can be to not have the birth you dreamed about and worked hard for. "Oh, but your baby is healthy! You should be happy for that!" Of course, you're happy your baby is healthy! But your birth wasn't the birth you wanted to give your baby!
Your body knows what to do, you are a birthing Goddess!

 

Thanks Brighid! It means a whole lot to me to hear that. In the begining I had terrible guilt that I hadn't tried hard enough, or done enough to make it happen the way we planned. I kept apologising to everyone as we were getting ready to tranfer. My husband was saying he was sorry for letting me struggle for so long, that he wished we had gone in sooner so I wouldn't have suffered so much. Later we talked about it. Our philosophy is that, as far as birthing is concerned, the hospital is for emergency situations and thats where we ended up. So I feel better now. I really don't want my story to discourage other would be home birthers though. I want to say that I could never have labored so long and in a way, comfortably, in the hospital. I was in a place I felt safe, surrounded by loving women and my dear sweet husband. I will absolutely have my next baby at home if I can! Susan thinks that because of the ease with which I pushed Jim out once I was fully dilated, I'll have no problem with the next one as long as the labor progresses. May I just add that he was 8 pounds 13 ounces and I didn't tear or scratch one bit! Woo hoo!

 

wow, lol my boy was only 7'11 and i tore lots, lol. i ended up with a nightmare birth too... and it still hurts a year later but the loss of the birth you dreamed of does fade, especially as your baby gets older and you find the birth becomes a smaller part of your life and headspace. my little one had to go thru drug withdrawal as well, because the damn doctors told me the drugs i was on (painkillers for SPD) wouldnt affect him, and then i spoke to another doctoer when i was 35 weeks who told me, oh, actually he is affected. at that point i was also hooked on the drugs and when i stopped taking them the pain was unbelievable, so i pushed to be induced at 38 weeks. he went through a lot, but he is such a happy and contented baby now, they are resilient little creatures.

 

Okay, no laughing... I haven't updated this website in about 3 years! But my daughter's birthstory is online, complete with just a few pics
http://www.geocities.com/chrispymouse/Katbirth1.html
love,
mom

 

I got pregnant at a young age and my mother totally flipped out and kicked me out of the house and i moved in with my boyfriend at the time. We moved from place to place trying to find a permanent location.... we ended up settling at his family's house.. a bad enviroment for children. I was constantlly on him about getting us our own place because my maternal instints were already kicking in.
My pregnancy was ok.. not too much morning sickness... altho the smell of cigerette smoke made me yack.... i was very active and was still going to school i was only 16 at the time...
Being in the place were my boyfriend starting hanging out with people who were into hard drugs and i was so pissed... he eventually started using and i wanted out of the situation... i eventually called my mother and told her what was goin on and that i wanted better for my child and where i was was totally unexcepable... she told me to call my father .... so i kinda roughed it out and had to deal with the situation for the time... he (the asshole that he was) started getting very mean towards me... put me into false labor twice... nice guy huh.
I had a due date of January 15th 2001 and on January 21st my doctor called me on Saturday morning and told me to get to the hospital.. a big snow storm was comming and he didnt want me to go inoto labor and have to try to get there.. so i got there around 11 am... they induced me at 11:30 and contractions started imediatly......i stuck out the contractions untill about 3pm and then i got the epidural.... my mom came and was coaching me while the jerk was passed out drunk on the sofa... labor was dragging and i fell asleep... they sent my mother home at around 12 am and said i wasnt going to go untill about 7 am..... i woke up at 2 am in pain... called the nurse and devon was crowning... at 2:49 am I had a healthy baby boy 21 inches 7lbs 9 1/2 oz.... my mom came the next day and fell in love with him... picked me up from the hospitala nd i went to get my things on the way home.... never went back to that hell hole again. very happy ending ... now im going to be induced on tuesday... with my baby girl..... today is saturdaythe 25th... i have my own place and im married to the best guy i could ever ask for. ill have to post my new experience when i get home... you all had beautiful stories