Today is my son’s second birthday. Aside from a few notes in his baby book and my journal, I’ve never really written about his birth. I’m now 15 weeks pregnant with his little sister. As I prepare to do it all again, I’m reflecting on the day two years ago when I first met the tiny, wrinkly baby who has become my sweet, spirited, fearless, open, curious, affectionate child.

On Wednesday evening, just over a week before my due date, I decided to go for a walk around my neighborhood. I was excited and impatient and ready to have this kid already. I’d heard lots of anecdotal stories about long walks inducing labor, so I decided to give it a try. It had been unseasonably warm, and that evening provided a break from several days of rain, so it was the perfect opportunity to get some exercise.

I don’t know whether it was the walk or the natural course of things, but the next afternoon, I started to feel a dull pain in my lower back. It began shortly after lunch and grew a little stronger over the next few hours. Near the end of the workday, I thought I was feeling tiny contractions. They didn’t hurt at all, but they felt like an involuntary tensing of muscles and seemed to be coming at fairly regular intervals. I started timing them as I drove home.

My mom was in town, and I had dinner with my family. I felt the contractions growing stronger throughout dinner. They still weren’t exactly painful, but they were more intense. Being overly eager and not sure what was happening, I decided we should go to the hospital that evening. The doctor on call performed a cervical check, but I was only 2 cm dilated. They told me I wasn’t in labor yet and sent me home around 9:30 or 10:00.

I barely slept that night. I took a warm bath to relax, turned on some soft music, and dozed a little, but the contractions grew more intense. They kept me up most of the night, and I started humming to myself to get through each one. I got out of bed, filed my nails, and did my makeup, not to impress anyone but just to distract myself. I passed something that might have been a mucus plug. There was a little blood, so I thought for sure I had to go to the hospital now. I called my doula and woke her up — it was about 6:00 AM. I told her I’d let her know what the doctor said, but that I thought it would soon be go time.

I don’t remember why, but my husband and I went to the shopping center across from the hospital and walked around for a while. I think I wanted to be sure I was far enough along before trying to check in again. I wasn’t, though — the hospital’s monitor wasn’t registering my contractions, even though they felt pretty darn intense to me, so they sent me away again. “You’re not in labor yet,” they told me. Like hell I’m not, I thought.

By this time, it was about 9:30 AM or so on Friday morning. I called my boss and told him that while I wasn’t far enough along to be admitted, there was clearly something happening and I didn’t think I should go to work that day. My mom, husband, and I went to a diner, and I ate a huge breakfast while gripping the table as contractions came and went. The wait staff was concerned that I’d give birth right there in the booth. Little did we all know, my son was going to take his sweet time making his grand entrance.

After breakfast, we went back home again, and I bounced on an exercise ball and sang “All My Loving” and “Baby Beluga” as the contractions came and went. I’d read in a birthing book that singing in a low octave helped somehow, as did making horse lips — I have no idea why. My doula come over with some homemade lavender massage oil and offered advice and comfort measures. I was intent on not getting sent away from the hospital again, so I stayed at home this time until the contractions were really, truly painful. When we finally headed out again, I could barely manage to sit in the car, I was so uncomfortable.

Walking into the hospital this time, I was in my own world. The physical sensations were so intense that everything else seemed like a blur. My mom showed me a photo of my dad, who had died seven months earlier, and I burst into tears. A nurse practitioner in the room was confused, and I had to explain that my reaction had nothing to do with my physical condition. A resident performed a very rough cervical check, and I screamed in pain. The nurse practitioner then performed one, a little more gently, and told me I had progressed to 6 cm dilation. “Your contractions are registering on the monitor now!” the resident told me. Finally, I thought as lay in the exam room, waiting for a birthing room to be ready.

My doula arrived, and she and my husband held my hand, rubbed my back, and did their best to keep me comfortable as I sat on the edge of the bed yelling with each contraction. I turned down an epidural a couple of times. The doctor on call suggested manually breaking my water in an attempt to move things along. Things continued pretty much the same for about two hours. The contractions were intense and close together, and I was becoming very tired. Another cervical check showed I was still only 6 cm dilated out of 10. Someone asked again if I wanted an epidural, and this time, I said yes.

Shortly after the epidural was placed, I couldn’t feel the contractions at all. I slept off and on throughout the night. My mom and doula slept on the couch in my room and my husband slept in the waiting room. In the morning, a nurse told me that my contractions had become less frequent, which can happen with an epidural. They started administering Pitocin to speed things up again, but there wasn’t much progress at first. Over the next six hours or so, they gradually increased the Pitocin dosage. I finally started feeling contractions again, but only pressure this time, not pain.

As my body and the drugs did their thing that Saturday, we read the news and talked about how it was Chinese New Year, the year of the dog. My husband went out and brought back food for everyone (not for me, though — I wasn’t allowed to eat). I had my doula sneak me sips of Gatorade and broth when the nurses weren’t looking. Otherwise, I was limited to ice chips, and I was so thirsty. Sometime that Saturday morning, I sent my doula home to tend to her own family because it felt like nothing was happening. I laid in the bed, napping off and on, waiting for the big moment.

As the day progressed, the nurses shifted me into different positions to try to get things moving. Despite the epidural, I still had full feeling in my legs, and I was able to turn onto my side and my hands and knees. It felt good to move. At some point in the mid-afternoon, the doctor came in to check on me and said we were going to do some practice pushing. My mom called the doula back. In retrospect, I think “practice pushing” was a way of saying it was time to get this baby out without making me nervous. With the Pitocin cranked way up at that point, the contractions had grown stronger and closer together again. The doctor coached me through some pushing for a while, and then she got called away to another birth. A woman who had just arrived at the hospital was about to deliver. The doctor told me to rest for a bit until she came back.

When she returned about half an hour later, we started pushing again. Now, there was progress. I don’t know exactly how long I pushed, but I don’t think it was very long — maybe an hour. I was straining, but it wasn’t painful. It was exciting. It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t done it, but pushing out a baby was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. I was surrounded by my husband, mom, doula, the doctor, a resident, and two nurses. The room was quiet aside from our voices and the whole thing felt calm, intimate, and momentous.

The little guy was turned sideways, so as I pushed, the doctor worked to turn him. I had asked for immediate skin-to-skin contact and delayed cord clamping, but the doctor saw that there was meconium in the amniotic fluid, which could be dangerous if inhaled or swallowed by the baby. For that reason, she told me they would need to suction the fluid from the baby’s mouth and nose immediately after he was born. As he crowned, she saw that his arm was raised and his hand was up at this head or shoulder. The resident who was assisting the birth apparently hadn’t encountered this before, and the attending doctor calmly reached in and did some maneuver to get the baby’s arm and shoulder unstuck.

And then, all of a sudden, out he came! I only remember seeing him for a second while my husband cut the umbilical cord. The nurses then whisked the baby away to a warming table for suctioning, cleaning, and assessing. My husband, mom, and doula, along with several nurses, were standing at the opposite side of the room ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the little guy while I lay in bed wishing I could see him too. He was probably only over there for a few minutes, but it felt like forever. I kept thinking, Somebody bring me my baby!

Finally, I got to hold him. My husband carried him over wrapped in a blanket and laid him on my chest. About 51 hours after I’d started feeling contractions, my baby was here with me. Despite all the classes I’d taken and books I’d read, I didn’t really know what to do, but I held his tiny body there for a few minutes and breathed deeply, taking it all in.

There was no “golden hour” — nurses and doctors seemed to be in and out of the room constantly after the birth. I tried to breastfeed for the first time and felt physically uncomfortable and clueless. The nurses helped me to position him, and I had to keep a log of how often I fed him and for how long. After being in bed for so long, all I wanted to do after giving birth was get up and move around, which the nurses helped me to do once the epidural had been removed. When I wasn’t feeding the baby, he mostly slept in the bassinet next to my bed while I tried to sleep myself. I shivered intensely and sweated throughout the night as my hormone levels readjusted. Mostly, though, I felt good. I was discharged the next day and left the hospital about 27 hours after giving birth, having taken nothing but Ibuprofen for the soreness. We got the tiny, sleepy baby into his car seat and set off for home, knowing our lives would never be the same again.

As I think about my next (and last) birth, I hope I have the same kind of positive experience I had the first time. Yes, the whole process took a long time, and no, it didn’t go exactly as I would have hoped, but I have very positive memories around giving birth. I felt so supported by all of my caretakers. The nurses, doctors, and my doula took such good care of me throughout my labor and recovery. I know no two births are alike, but I’m hoping to have the same doctor and doula by my side this time around, at the same hospital.

Bringing a baby into the world was such an incredible experience. It is one of the highlights of my life, and I will be eternally grateful for having had the opportunity to do it.

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