I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything, but I guess it's time to put it all down in writing before my memory fades. Pregnancy was a wild ride, and I'm not just talking about the actual birth. I started with a 4-session aqua aerobics course, which I absolutely loved, but I have to admit, I was dreading the last session. I decided to push through and make it to the final class on Friday. Little did I know, my intuition was spot on. I was 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant at the time. After the pool session, my blood pressure started to rise, but I felt fine. I'd been monitoring my blood pressure closely since I'd noticed swelling in my legs a few weeks prior. Fast forward to 6 am the next morning, and my blood pressure was at 140/100 (anything above 130/80 is considered a reason to head to the hospital). I took my time, grabbed my pre-packed hospital bags, and headed to the hospital at 9 am sharp.

I'm not sharing the photo of my belly with a bunch of water, but let's just say it was a sight to behold.

I'd chosen a hospital that was a bit of a trek from my place, but it offered the one thing I was desperate for - the chance to have a water birth with my partner by my side. We'd taken a birthing class, and my partner was all set to be my rock. We'd also got all our documents in order, just in case.

When we arrived at the hospital, my blood pressure had returned to normal, and I was still feeling relatively okay. However, the doctors did diagnose me with mild pre-eclampsia, which meant I had to stay in the hospital for further observation and treatment. This included a series of tests, a magnesium sulfate drip, and a 24-hour urine test.

I'm not sharing the photo of my swollen feet, but let's just say it was a real thing.

Thankfully, my blood pressure didn't spike again, and all my test results came back normal. The ultrasound revealed that our little one was a whopping 4100 grams (give or take 600 grams) at 38 weeks and 4 days. Yes, we'd been told he was a big boy from the get-go, but this was still a shock. And to think, I'd been eating normally throughout my pregnancy, with no signs of gestational diabetes. It wasn't until I hit 39 weeks that things started to make sense - my mom and grandma both had big babies, too.

I'll never forget the day I had my ultrasound scan. The doctor told me I'd need to induce labor and asked if I was okay with it. I immediately said no, started crying, and complained that I'd come in too early due to high blood pressure. The doctor chuckled and said it wasn't possible to overdo it with a baby of that size. He told me that first-time moms can go up to 4.5 or 5 kg, and that's when things get serious. He warned me there was a risk I might not give birth at all. I was in shock, crying, and completely resistant to the idea, as I'd always wanted to give birth naturally without any interventions, including an epidural. I'd been worried about complications like tears and cuts throughout my pregnancy. I sobbed for hours, wandering the corridors, until the doctor took a break from his lunch to sit with me and calm me down. He managed to convince me to go ahead with the induction right then and there – which is pretty typical of me, to be honest. I'm someone who once I've made up my mind, I want it now. The doctor asked me to think about it overnight, but I was already determined. However...

Pregnancy-induced hysteria is a real thing, I swear. I think it was a combination of stress, my initial resistance to the idea of induction, and walking around with wet feet and an open window that led to my next problem – a nasty infection in my groin area. I was so inflamed that they had to discharge me from the hospital (on Tuesday), as they suspected I had a severe infection and either needed to go to the infectious diseases ward or head home until it cleared up. They told me to come back in five days (on Monday) for the induction. But, of course, my infection dragged on for a month – that was a whole other ordeal. I thought I just had a bad case of folliculitis, but the doctor ended up having to cut it open (on Wednesday). I mean, I cut it open – the doctor made a three-centimeter incision, and it was a centimeter deep. I'd never seen anything like it. After that, my contractions started, and I headed to the hospital to give birth.

Friday, March 7th.

11.50 am: The contractions started – short, intense, and irregular, about every hour and a half.

The contractions got stronger.

Around 15.00: The pain was intense, with sharp, stabbing sensations that radiated from my lower back down to my legs and thighs. I was frozen in place, unable to move or even sit down. I tried to remember my breathing exercises from the classes I'd taken, but it was no use. I thought it was just a False alarm, as the time between contractions was initially irregular, then every 11-15 minutes. But when the intervals became more consistent, every 10 minutes, I realized I might actually be in labor. However, I wasn't thinking about that right then – I was too worried about not being able to deliver at the hospital we'd planned to go to, due to my recent surgery. When they started asking my husband for documents, I realized we wouldn't be able to go to the planned hospital after all. The requirements were different, and my husband didn't have the right paperwork – he was missing a certificate for measles, and we needed a fluorography scan that was less than six months old, not a year old. It was a nightmare, and I was terrified of giving birth without my husband by my side. We'd prepared for this moment together, gone to joint birthing classes, and he'd been so involved from the very beginning of our relationship – even back in school.

I was counting on my husband to be back from the lab within 20 minutes, but he ended up leaving right as they were closing. And, funnily enough, the lab results take 2 days to come in... I was holding onto some hope that maybe, just maybe, the practice exams would be enough.

Around 8:20 PM. Five and a half hours had passed, and contractions were still coming every 10 minutes, but the pain was getting worse. My husband, who had been pacing with me around the apartment, finally insisted that it was time to head to the hospital. When I called for an ambulance, the dispatcher asked for his surname, and he jokingly replied, 'Do I need to give my wife's surname or mine?'

Around 8:20 PM. The ambulance arrived really quickly, probably within 5 minutes. When they got there, contractions stopped for 15 minutes. I thought they'd be annoyed that we'd called for a False alarm, but the paramedics just looked at each other and raised an eyebrow when they heard that contractions had been going on for 5.5 hours at home. I'd been waiting for the interval to be around 8 minutes so I could experience the start of labor in a comfortable environment at home, just like the courses had advised.

After a 15-minute break, contractions started up again and sped up rapidly, with an interval of every 6 minutes. The paramedics were getting nervous, worrying that I'd give birth right in the ambulance. They asked the driver to hurry up, as the infectious diseases hospital was an hour's drive away. I don't know how, but they managed to get us there in 40 minutes with the sirens on.

At 10 PM, I was at the hospital. The cervix was dilated by 3 centimeters. Considering that I'd already had 1 centimeter dilated at the first hospital, that meant I was only 2 centimeters dilated at home after 6 hours.

In the hospital, contractions became more manageable, maybe because I knew that medical help was always nearby.

The first thing I did was beg them to let my husband in with me. When they asked for some documents, they looked at each other in surprise and said that the rules were old, but as long as the X-ray was up to date, it was fine. My hopes were confirmed, and I rushed to call my husband to find out where he could get the X-ray done within 24 hours. He managed to find a place that was a bit far from our home but still doable within 2 hours. He made it just in time, and when he said, 'My wife is giving birth, it's an emergency,' they let him in 30 minutes early, skipping the queue of 8 people and giving him a 3-minute consultation instead of the usual 15 minutes.

At 10:40 PM, the cervix was dilated by 4 centimeters.

In the meantime, the doctors were telling me to hurry up my husband, as the cervix dilates faster after 5 centimeters.

At 11:40 PM, they performed an amniotomy (rupture of membranes). Everything's fine with the waters, and the polyhydramnios was confirmed.

At 11:55 PM, the cervix was dilated by 5 centimeters. My husband was already in the waiting area, waiting for the doctor to clear him to be with me.

On March 8th, at 12:10 AM, my husband was by my side. The time had flown by for me because I was worried about whether my husband would make it in time. I was lying on the examination table with the fetal monitor on, but I was smiling widely when I saw him. Contractions were manageable, and I was breathing calmly, saying 'Ssssss' between contractions.

I have to say, things took a turn for the worse after that. Four hours into what felt like the most intense contractions ever, where I was desperately trying to breathe through them, the doctor told me that the dilation was still only 5-6 centimeters. During that time, I would lose consciousness every time I had a break between contractions, and my husband would rub me down and press on my legs to distract me from the pain. The doctor would come in frequently to check on me, offer support, and remind me to breathe through the contractions. By 4 am, I was so exhausted that I couldn't think straight. The baby wasn't descending into the birth canal. They let me get off the bed for an hour to walk around the delivery room, sit on the birth ball, and take a shower.

I had planned to take a shower, but I was wearing compression stockings that my husband had barely managed to put on me, and now with the contractions, I wouldn't have been able to put them back on. So, I just walked around and sat on the birth ball. And the birth ball was a game-changer – it made the contractions more manageable, and the dilation improved, and the baby started to descend.

But for the doctors, that wasn't enough, considering my state, and my pathetic question, 'how can I help myself?' they gave me an oxygen mask. The smell of it lingered for a month, I think. The stress was there too, because you can't breathe too deeply or too often, or it'll affect the baby, but trying to breathe through the contractions and inhale properly was also impossible. I was constantly scolded, and I could only breathe through the mask after about 10 minutes. Although it's considered pain relief, it didn't help at all. My husband asked about an epidural, but the doctors strongly advised against it, saying it would slow down the labor even further. The labor slowed down, the dilation didn't progress, and the doctor rushed off to consult with other doctors, and they gave me oxytocin. I have no idea how or when it's supposed to start working, but when they almost emptied the entire syringe into my IV, I was hit with an intense pain. I shook and groaned, and forget about breathing through it...

The pain from the contractions intensified by a factor of 100. In my head, I was thinking, 'just cut me already' or, if I had a gun, I would have shot myself. And that's when I understood what my mother-in-law was talking about when she said that the woman giving birth next to her tried to jump out the window, cursing at her husband.

At 5-6-7 am, I felt like I was dying. The dilation was progressing, but very slowly. The dilation was at 8-9 centimeters. They called in the head doctor, promising that he was a great guy. And I think they tried to manually stretch my cervix. The head doctor announced that the dilation was still at 9, the contractions were taking too long, and they needed to try something. The doctors were ready to take drastic measures.

At 7:20, four doctors and three midwives swarmed around me. They brought in this huge metal machine (my husband thought it was a vacuum, and he heard them talking about it), and I was completely out of it, so I only caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye.

I was being told what to do and how to push during contractions. But the contractions just weren't coming, I guess all the commotion around me had me stalling. Contractions finally kicked in a bit later than usual and with one push, the baby's head started to show. They told me to stop pushing and try to breathe calmly, no more straining. Everyone started rushing around, wheeling that metal thing away, my doctor was frantically pressing the pedal to lift the bed, and I was just yelling 'hurry up, hurry up' at the top of my lungs. My husband was standing on the other side, holding me up. It was all pretty funny and entertaining, but not exactly the time to be laughing.

Everyone's ready, I'm holding onto the bars, my feet are braced, first push was all wrong, and they stopped me. My husband's watching the whole thing, and I'm yelling at him not to look. Later, he told me that he was the first one to see something black, which turned out to be the baby's hair on their head. I don't even want to imagine what it looked like, and he says it was pretty interesting.

7:30. Waiting for contractions, I caught a glimpse of those scissors out of the corner of my eye, and then they cut me and the baby came out. Later, they explained that they saw me starting to tear and decided to do an episiotomy. The pushing phase was actually pretty easy, maybe even enjoyable... the baby was born in just 2-3 pushes. I still can't believe I'm writing this.

No screaming or crying. Breathe through each contraction to the letter 'S' really helped me. And during the pushing phase, there just wasn't time for screaming. Pushes were relatively painless compared to contractions, and since pushing was almost over, I gave it my all to get it done as quickly as possible. The cut with the scissors didn't hurt at all, and I'm really grateful to my nurse for doing it at the right moment when I was at maximum tension.

The incredible relief of it all being over, knowing I'm not pregnant anymore, the baby's finally here, and I won't have to go through it again. The baby started crying right away, they cut the umbilical cord, and then they placed them on a towel, not directly on my body. 8/9 on the Apgar scale, 57 cm, 4400 grams...

Trying to deliver the placenta was a joke. It hurt when the doctor pressed his elbow into my uterus to get the blood out.

Later, when they brought the baby back to nurse, I asked them to attach it to my husband's skin too, so the baby could get some bacteria from him and make it a special moment for him. The old nurse didn't know what to make of it, so she took the baby away, saying she didn't know about that. My husband ended up sitting with the baby in the nursery while they stitched me up.

I've got to be honest, the anesthesia wore off way too quickly, and I was hit with this intense, unbearable pain and stinging sensation right when they were still processing the baby inside me. I started screaming like I'd never screamed before, cursing everyone and everything around me, and they were slapping me across the face and trying to calm me down. My husband, who had rushed into the delivery room, was kicked out, and they told him it was because an operation was underway. He was standing in the doorway, white as a ghost, while I was screaming at the top of my lungs and constantly calling for the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist just laughed and said I was having a psych reaction, that it wasn't pain, just some crazy dream or something. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. Slapping me in the face didn't help, and they ended up giving me another dose to knock me out. The doctor even asked my husband to ask me later what I was dreaming about, and I somehow replied, 'Food.' I hadn't eaten in 20 hours, by the way. As for the pain, I told my husband about it later, and I still remember how it felt – the stinging in my cheeks from the slaps, the sore throat, and the hoarse voice that lasted for days.

The aftermath of giving birth was a real nightmare. The baby had a burst blood vessel in their eye, which took three weeks to heal. I had a torn cervix, a poorly stitched episiotomy, and severe blood loss. For the first two days, my husband was a lifesaver, carrying me everywhere because I couldn't even stand up or pick up the baby. After that, I was hobbling around the hospital on my hands and knees, and the other moms in the ward, who were either pregnant or had just given birth, were kind enough to help me out.

After the birth, life as I knew it came to an end, and I entered a whole new world of 'survival mode,' where I was constantly serving this new little person. For two months after the episiotomy, I wasn't allowed to sit down, and for the first month, I was running from doctor to doctor, dealing with a burst stitch, hidradenitis, ultrasound scans for lactostasis, back pain, chest pain, intercostal neuralgia, and toothaches, all while trying to get some sleep and dealing with a screaming baby 24/7. Now, they've diagnosed me with postpartum depression and asthenic syndrome (exhaustion), and I'm on antidepressants and tranquilizers. I used to laugh at people who talked about postpartum depression, and now it's come back to haunt me. But that's a whole other story – how I dragged the baby to all these doctors, and in the end, I just needed to stop breastfeeding and take care of myself.

I highly recommend natural childbirth! It was a wild ride, but I'm surprised to say that I was already joking with my husband about how 'fun' it was just two weeks later. We never regretted having our baby together. My husband's support was what kept me going – I don't know how I would have made it without him.

I have to say, regardless of the delivery method a woman chooses, the end result is what matters most. I've had a C-section, for instance, and I'm terrified of it because it's a major, invasive abdominal surgery for me.

Raising a child, no matter how it happens, is a global effort, and only after going through it do you start looking at pregnant women and parents in a whole new light.

As I was writing all this, I found myself laughing and realizing how cool it'll be to re-read these details 30 years from now.

I've already written about my experience with fetal monitoring here.

Hobbies for those who are already in a post-baby phase and for those who love crafting with their hands.