I had a rather easy pregnancy. I was diagnosed with an irritable uterus around 21 weeks but it never was a cause for concern. My original due date was February 15th, 2013, but Jackson came on January 24th!

I had my 37 week check up two days early on January 23rd and I had no signs of labour. Cervix was firm and closed, but little man was loooow! I had pretty bad discomfort walking and laying down for the past two weeks but I was told that was to be expected. My SO and I went shopping and I was feeling totally fine. We went home, cooked and ate dinner, and got in to bed at 11:30 PM. As I went to lay down, I felt and heard a pop and started leaking. I ran (well, waddled) to the bathroom and confined to gush liquid. I called my midwife and she told us to head on over to L&D! Cramping started immediately, feeling like period cramps, and got worse and worse rather fast. I was still gushing amniotic fluid when we got to L&D and the contractions were still increasing. In our rush, we never timed them until L&D, where my SO timed them and he said they were two minutes apart. Uh oh...

Nurses did a cervical check and I was dilated 4cm at 12:10 AM. Woah! At 2:30 PM I wasn't showing any signs of readiness! The contractions at this point were getting excruciating and I asked for an epidural when my room was ready. I huffed and puffed and yelled through them, boy were they painful! At about 12:45, my room was ready and up we went! It took me a few minutes to get in to the wheelchair to go up to my room because at this point my contractions were a minute apart.

When we got up to our room, the contractions were baaaad. I kept begging for an epidural and the nurses let me know that the anesthesiologist was coming. They told me to sit on the edge of the bed but it took me around 15 minutes to actually do so because of the intensity of the contractions. I was moaning and groaning and yelling away, the only pain relief that I got. When I finally got on the edge of the bed, I told them I felt like I needed to push. They said no, I was fine, but I insisted. The nurses laid me back and did another cervical check and I was at 10cm!

My midwife came in and so did a rush of nurses. I was on my side and my poor SO was standing there looking really confused. I was in my own little world, barely saying anything. I never got the epidural but that was okay. My midwife told me to push, which I barely needed to try to do because my body took complete control. After two pushes in two minutes, Jackson William was born! He weighed in at 6lbs 1.2oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. He was born at 36w 6d, so they didn't need to take him up to the NICU. Perfect APGAR score and I only had "road rash" for tearing.

I went from water breaking to happy mama in 2 hours and 9 minutes. Having an unplanned natural birth made me realize that I could absolutely do it again.