My pregnancy was almost a breeze, up until the very last minute. Actually it wasn't that easy, but I had a good attitude about being pregnant even though it wasn't a planned pregnancy. I was very young, only 21 years old when I became pregnant. I dropped out of school and took a job as a cook in a Mexican restaurant. The Baby-Daddy, was working in a nice engineering firm so I wanted to save up some money for when the baby came, otherwise, I wouldn't have been working.

Anyways, working in a kitchen can be difficult when you're pregnant, but being twenty one, I didn't have a clue about what I was doing. I guess at that age I didn't see the severity of my "condition". One day, I was going down the steps from the kitchen to the front, when I slipped on something and fell down four steps, landing on my side. I was only four months along, not showing, so my boss didn't know that I was pregnant. I got up and went back to work. For the remainder of the pregnancy I was in excrutiating pain from having hurt my sciatic nerve. But I was young and tough, and determined to get through the pregnancy without being one of those whiny pregnant women.

So I continued working for the next few months, my baby grew and grew. Her father and I were very excited about the baby. We took birthing classes and did a lot of research on labor. I read the hippie book Spiritual Midwifery and decided that I must have a natural delivery. I wanted to feel the ecstasy that was described in the book. I wanted to look like those dewy, hairy-bushed hippie women in the book with their newborn babies, smiling. I was a very impressionable young woman.

I was nearing the end of my pregnancy when I had another accident at work. I was on my lunch break one Friday, when I went outside. We had director chairs where our customers could sit outside to eat. I went to sit in one of these chairs when the back gave out. I fell back wards, landing on my back. People on the street stopped to help me get up. I was in shock, and I didn't realize that I might be hurt, I didn't feel any pain after all. I went back to work, closed as usual, and tried to enjoy my weekend. The Baby-Daddy and I decided to go on a short hike in Mt. Rainier that weekend, it was a great day. I had no pain, and I felt lots of energy. One thing however, was not normal. I had a constant urge to pee. Not only that, I had a strange smell about me, not bad, just strange. And strong enough for Baby-Daddy to smell it and comment. I told him I would ask the doctor about it on my next appointment that following week.

I went to the doctor that Thursday to get a check up. I was 31 weeks along and feeling fine. But my baby wasn't. The doctor sent me to the hospital to get monitored since she couldn't hear the baby's heart beat. She seemed calm, so I was calm. I've always been very strong and healthy, and I didn't feel worried at all. I thought it would be a waste of time to go to the hospital, but I went anyway.

That's when things went downhill. At the hospital I was told that I might need a c-section, even though I had made it clear that wasn't what I wanted. I had several ultra-sounds done, and an amniocentesis done to check her fluid, and I was strapped to a fetal monitor machine of some kind. I wasn't prepared at all to have the baby yet. I was waiting for the last few weeks to go shopping for her things. All I had at home was a crib and changing table, no clothes, no toiletries, no diapers, nothing.

I explained to the doctor that I wasn't ready to have my daughter, and I would be happier to have bed rest instead of a c-section or to have the labor induced. Then she explained to me what had probably happened: When I fell from the chair at work I probably ruptured my amniotic sack, causing my fluid to leak. The lack of fluid caused the baby to put pressure on the umbilical chord, preventing oxygen to get to her, and making impossible for me to have labor induced. Secondly, my daughter was all tangled up in the umbilical chord, possibly from the stress of loosing fuid. And thirdly, and what finally did it, my placenta had expired.

At thirty one weeks, at 2:22am, I had an emergency c-section. It would have been done earlier in the day, but I insisted that I didn't want a c-section. When I was told that it was my only option, I tried to leave the hospital. The Baby-Daddy was very good at keeping me calm at that point, as did whatever they injected into my IV. Because before I knew it I was in the operating room, strapped to a table, and getting cut open.

My daughter was born weighing 3 lbs. 6 oz. and a little jaundiced, but perfectly healthy. Now that she is 11 years old, it's hard to imagine that she was once a tiny little thing. And it's easy to forget that the last day of my pregnancy was traumatic--- well, maybe not.