The next day, I woke up and went down to the kitchen for breakfast around 9:30 AM. Just as I was about to pour a bowl of Raisin Bran, I felt a gush and a rush of fluid. I really thought my water broke this time! I called my friend, Robyn, and we went over all the sure signs of water breaking. I was afraid to go back to the hospital for another false alarm, but this seemed to be the real deal! By 10:30 AM, we were in the hospital and it was confirmed my water had broken - 24 hours after the first visit to the hospital.

I was admitted to the hospital and set up in my personal LDRP room. This room is where I labor and deliver and also recover while rooming in with my newborn. My hospital uses the one on one nursing concept where I am assigned a personal nurse who stays in the room with me the entire labor (of course when their shift is up, you get a new nurse - I had 3 in all.) I was checked and my cervix was dilated only about 1 inch and I was not having contractions. Anne, my first nurse, told me she will call my doctor but I should make the decision of whether or not to try to start my labor naturally - she knew the doctor would want to start Pitocin as soon as possible. I wanted to try natural, so we walked the corridors for about 2 hours before the deadline my doctor placed at 2:00.

With no labor in sight, the Pitocin drip was started at 2:00 and I waited for contractions to start. During this time, Anne's shift ended and Tina became my new nurse. Tina spent her entire shift as my nurse and she was wonderful! Unfortunately, I was unable to leave the room or really move around the room because I was strapped to the fetal heartbeat/contraction monitor once the Pitocin was started. The contractions started to really kick in around 6:00 and I was completely uncomfortable in bed. I didn't want to start using the epidural until I was unable to handle the contraction pain. So I used a rocker, a birth ball and some standing exercises with Patrick to handle the contractions.

My doctor checked in around 6:30 and I was 3 cm. dilated. The Pitocin was working so it was time to just settle in for a night of laboring.

At 10:00, my cervix hadn't changed - I was still 3 cm dilated and felt a little defeated. Tina called the doctor and she came back with upsetting news - we might be looking at a c-section. The doctor was afraid the fibroid on my uterus was stopping my cervix from dilating any further. Tina suggested that sometimes an epidural will cause a woman on Pitocin to dilate faster because it allows the entire lower region to relax. I figured since I would need one for the c-section anyway, it was worth a try.

At 10:30, the epidural was complete and we waited for some results. I could no longer walk around the room so I stayed in bed and Patrick pulled out the small bed to sleep on.

I was checked at 11:00 and I was suddenly dilated to 6 cm! It was great - I couldn't feel the pain and I was dilating so quickly! We figured it would take a few more hours, though. So continued to settle in for the night.

Tina's shift ended at 11, so Roberta became my new nurse - she wanted to check me at 11:45 so she knew exactly where we were at and I was dilated to 10 cm! The baby was coming down the birth canal! She called the doctor and a midwife came into the room in case she didn't make it on time.

Patrick was woken by the voice of the midwife saying it was time to push! I was placed on oxygen because the baby's heartrate seemed to drop a little, but it went up immediately once I started breathing it in. We started pushing and by the time the doctor came I was one push away from the baby crowning! After 25 minutes of pushing and an episiotomy (he was coming too fast for me to stretch fast enough), my beautiful son was born into the world at 12:25 AM on March 5th, 2004. He was perfect to me in every way!

Liam Patrick scored a 9 each time he was given the APGAR test, had his nose and mouth suctioned and some eye drops and was immediately handed back to me where we started nursing - he was a natural! He was then given his Vitamin K and first Hepatitis B shots, the room was cleaned of all labor equipment and we were left to spend out first night together.