By Saturday morning, I had fully convinced myself I had several weeks left before my daughter was going to be born.

It was a survival mechanism, really; I was miserable, waiting for her and wanting her to be here.

So I told myself to try and find some patience and just enjoy myself. The hubs and I made grand plans for a fun Saturday at – where else? – Costco, to stock up on all the bulk foods we’d need before Ella was born, plus he was treating me to hot and spicy lunch of my favorite, Thai food.

I was actually really excited. What can I say? I love me some bulk foods and Asian fusion cuisine.

Which is why, when I woke up that morning, I attributed my quick, excited rise from the bed, plus my 38-week pregnant body, as the reason I seemed to pee myself.

I literally spilled liquid on the bed.

I was shocked. And then, I remembered that the midwives had me inserting evening primrose oil vaginally for the last two weeks, and, well, there was bound to be some residual fluid, I thought.

So, I ignored it. I started making breakfast, actually.

Occasionally, I’d bend over and feel another trickle. Or I’d reach for a pot and feel a small gush.

And, as silly as it sounds, I kept writing it off. In fact, I just thought I was finally losing all bladder control.

So I changed my underwear. And I changed them again.

I was finally on my third pair when my husband told me a joke and made me laugh, resulting in a small gush of fluid that soaked through my yoga pants and onto our couch.

I ran to the bathroom, ready to change my underwear yet again.

Then I realized how clear and odor-less the fluid was that had left my body.

It definitely wasn’t pee. It definitely wasn’t discharge. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was flowing enough for me to begin to question it. Finally.

So, being of sound mind and all – and still totally convinced I had a few weeks before I could expect to feel the tell-tale contractions signifying real labor – I called my mother and a few friends.

I asked them exactly what I should expect with a loss of amniotic fluid.

They all immediately talked me into calling the people I should have all along: my midwives.

I felt horrible; it was a Saturday, after all, and I was pulling one of these women away from family. I just knew it.

But the on-call midwife wouldn’t even think of letting me “wait and see,” as I suggested on the phone with her, and she had the hubs and me come on in to the birth center to be examined.

Once there, she had me lay down on the exam table to ”have a look.”

But before I even got on my back, I’d soaked through the table’s covering cloth, and in her words, ”Well, I don’t even need to look at that. That’s amniotic fluid. You’re in labor, whether your body knows it or not.”

We were able to ascertain I was having regular, albeit rather weak contractions, but being that active labor needs to start within 24 hours of one’s membrane rupturing (per natural midwifery standards – doctor and hospital standards are quite different when it comes to this) she set up a plan for my Saturday.

And it definitely didn’t involve Costco and Thai food.

The midwife sent us home, where I immediately started taking a black cohosh supplement, along with what my midwives call a “natural induction cocktail” – 1 cup of champagne, I cup of apricot nectar, 4 tablespoons of almond butter, and 4 ounces of castor oil. (Note: Do not take this unless you are told to by a health practitioner. My midwives pointed out that not all women have a “favorable cervix” for the cocktail, and even if they did, they really only use this recipe when a woman’s water breaks before active labor starts.)

Luckily, for me, within 10 minutes of taking a long walk with the hubs and drinking the odd-but-not-unpleasant-tasting cocktail, I could feel my contractions.

I didn’t even have time to take the midwife-prescribed nap before I was having to work through them.

They weren’t bad, but they were immediately lasting over a minute long each and quickly went from eight minutes apart to six minutes apart to four minutes apart.

Meanwhile, my mother and one of my best friends were speeding up from Florida, trying to make it to us in time for the birth.

I was naked before I knew it, pacing about our house, stopping and rocking on all fours or on the birthing ball, low-moaning through them like I’d been taught in my birthing class.

I felt the contractions mostly in my back and tail-bone – their was nothing abdominal about them at all, much to my surprise. It was at this point that I realized I wasn’t going to rest until my daughter was here; laying down was excruciating.

Finally, I got in our shower. I’d lay limp in the hot water during my rest periods and then squat and move during contractions, grunting.

My contractions were now less than two minutes apart and had been for quite a while. I was able to talk during the breaks, but I won’t lie; the contractions hurt. I had to focus in order to make it through each one.

My mom and friend arrived around 9:30 that night, and I was definitely feeling the now very active labor.

They helped me get dressed, loaded the car with the hubs, and we all headed toward the birth center after calling the midwife.

It was time to have this baby.

We arrived, unloaded, and the midwife checked me.

I was only four centimeters dilated, but I was completely effaced and the baby was super low.

Disappointed I’d only progressed to four centimeters, I hopped up and began to walk; I wanted to get that baby out.

When I couldn’t walk outside anymore, I got in their shower. Then they brought the birthing ball into the shower, and I rolled there for a while.

I was six centimeters within the hour, and things were starting to really get to me.

I was on all fours on the bed, rolling my upper body on the birthing ball. I was lunging on the bed – one foot up, one foot down. I was squatting, and my friend was slowly pressing on my sacrum while I did so. I was grunting and moaning deep and low, trying to loosen up my sphincters to allow myself to progress.

Still, at this point, I started to struggle to relax. Occasionally, my grunts would turn to whimpers. I’d cry out once in a while. It hurt, plain and simple. And it was starting to take over.

My midwife, who very calmly remained there but let me do my thing, got in my face a few times when she heard me start to lose it and reminded me to work through them; that this was my body doing good work.

Still, I was having trouble remaining open to it.

So I asked to get in the birthing tub.

In that moment, my whole world changed.

My contractions got worse, but I was able to drift away in between them and focus on being open and letting the baby come down and out.

The hubs was in the tub with me, and I leaned against him between contractions and literally spaced off at times.

I quickly made it to nine centimeters.

My midwife was satisfied, and everyone got a bit more excited because the end was in sight.

Everyone except me, that is.

I, meanwhile, was in what my friend called a “birth trance.”

I really remember very little of what happened at this point.

My mom said I was literally ”staring through people, walls, everything.”

When a contraction would hit, I’d move, squat, grip the side of the tub, bear down, and do a whole host of random things I was unaware of. In between, I’d lie limp on my husband.

I quickly made it to almost 10 centimeters and was in a whole other planet getting there.

It was, hands down, one of the most bizarre, out-of-body experiences ever. I came to just enough to hold still so the midwife could help push back the top lip of my cervix during a contraction. That, frankly, was one of the worst part of the whole experiences. But that was one of the only things I remember from this point on.

It was over quickly, and I was complete. I was ready to push.

The first few minutes of pushing were scary for me. I remember thinking, ”I cannot do this. I don’t know how to do this. How in the heck am I going to do this?”

My mom, who knows me better than anyone, said she saw that look come over my face, too.

In other words, I looked and felt terrified.

I was completely scared to push. I even thought to myself, ”Do I have to? I’m just so tired.”

I was clearly not being rational, and so, my first few pushes were feeble.

I was leaning back against the hubs and pushing aimlessly. It still hurt all in my back and tailbone to bear down like that, and I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

I came to enough to ask the midwife if I could flip over. On all fours, it all felt much more manageable. I could push stronger, and I then began, in my own head, to talk myself through each contraction and its resulting pushes.

Meanwhile, in between contractions, I began to fall asleep.

Literally, I dozed off. Furthermore, I had dreams. Dreams that had nothing to do with birth or my baby or anything infant-related.

I’d come to, push and grunt, and then pass out on my husband and dream senseless dreams yet again.

It was insane – I’d read pregnant women did that during un-medicated childbirth, but I’d never thought it would happen to me – and looking back on it, I am immensely glad it did. It was definitely my way of coping.

At one point, I’d been pushing for about 35 minutes, and I fell into such a deep slumber that, when I woke up, I startled, not knowing where I was, who I was, and what the heck I was doing.

I thrashed in the tub – my husband had to duck – and I flipped back over on my butt, leaning against him.

The midwife quickly grabbed me and told me to push, and again, I bear-ed down, but I don’t remember it. My mom told me later that, after the contraction, I’d yelled out, ”I fell asleep,” like I was embarrassed.

Luckily, though, that was the turning point for me.

I continued to push for 10 more minutes. I knew I was close. I could pick up on the tones of the midwife and my mom and friend that they could see the baby’s head, and I could feel the stretching as she crowned.

Still, I was so out of it that, when the midwife told me to touch her head, apparently I told her, ”I can’t. I can’t.”

I just kept pushing. The only thing I remember is my midwife telling me to stop, so she could check that the baby didn’t have the cord wrapped around her neck.

Ella was a good baby the whole time. She didn’t, and we continued; we were so close.

The last five minutes I completely blanked out. I don’t remember pushing her head out at all. I remember the burning – the infamous “ring of fire” all women talk about – and apparently, I looked at my friend at one point and yelped, ”It’s burning!” But other than that, I don’t remember her head emerging or the rest of her body.

I came to when everyone started yelling in joy, and I looked down – literally in shock – to find myself holding a baby.

Our baby.

Our little Ella.

Then, little pieces of the room started coming back to me: My husband, bawling and holding both Ella and I; my mom and friend, crying and snapping photos, and the midwife, who had literally touched her as she came out underwater and scooped her right up into my arms, apparently, silently beaming.

I peeked between her legs, mostly to ascertain that she was, indeed, a little girl. (We actually never got a 100-percent guarantee of her gender on the ultrasound, so I always had reservations that I might be raising a little boy in a lot of pink onesies.)

And then, we were just there, in the tub, Ella crying and my husband and I staring at her.

Our new little family, now completed by a 7 pound, 0.5 ounce little girl born at 4 a.m.

Afterwards, things moved really quickly. After her cord blood stopped pulsing, the hubs cut the cord, and he took Ella up against his bare chest to warm her while they got me out of the tub and onto the bed to deliver the placenta.

I had what seemed to be uncontrollable shakes – a normal aftermath of delivery, especially natural delivery, I’m told – but within minutes, I’d pushed out the placenta, been covered in a warm blanket, and had the baby placed back on my chest.

I felt a thousand pounds lighter.

The pokes and prods by the midwife – checking all my business – felt like next to nothing. The nurse taking my blood pressure and the baby’s temperature I barely noticed.

I was simply staring at my daughter, enthralled.

I was in absolute shock that she was ours, to keep. That, less than 24 hours before, I’d awoken, nowhere even near considering I’d have a baby that day.

It was like a dream – a crazy, happy dream that we’d somehow made our reality, and I’d yet to figure out how.

-Brittany C

Brittany is a former high-school teacher, who now works as a personal/fitness trainer and freelance writer. She’s been married for almost three years to a sailor in the U.S. Navy.  This story was also featured on her blog, which you can find at http://www.brittsbeat.com/.

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Focus on Birth is a growing resource for expectant moms wanting a natural unmedicated childbirth. Our goal is to provide woman with birth stories and photos to help encourage them through their natural childbirth process.  If you are interested in learning more or sharing your story, please email info@focusonbirth.com.   Photos courtesy of Brittany C.