Nearing the end of my second pregnancy I find myself in strange territory. Due to the fact that my first was born by planned C-Section because of complications known well in advance, my husband and I have opted to take mother nature's natural route since our hospital supports VBAC (vaginal birth after C-Section). In the beginning of the pregnancy I was on my game. I already knew what was going on with my body and the growing baby inside. The movements, the heart burn, the sleepiness, bouts of morning sickness and so on were all expected and taken in stride. Thank goodness for my humorous friends that keep me laughing all the way to hospital for false alarms.

After a busy day of running errands around town I found myself having a hard time standing. What started out as a small amount of uncomfortable pressure down below quickly turned into a large amount of pressure. Trying to tough it out, I let my husband know that I'm not feeling too great but I'll be okay. So on our way we go to wash the car. The pain gets so intense I'm holding myself up off the seat and then I begin to panic. Outside my husband is scrubbing the car down while I sit and try to relax. Worried, I call one of my best friends who's “been there done that” and comes to take me home so I can lay down. After all, my water hasn't broke and the contractions aren't consistent.

More time goes by and so do the contractions. My husband has no clue what to do and wants to take me in. I refuse until evening rolls around and I'm still going through random rounds of pain that has gone on all day at this point. Because I wasn't close enough to “full-term” I don't even have a bag packed and nothing is ready. Like a champ, my husband is on it and takes care of it all and still remembers to get me in the car before taking off. Now that we are on our way, like planned, out goes the spam text to everyone that wanted the heads up and the phone blows up immediately.

Call after call, I reassure everyone that they're going to end up sending me home. One friend in particular had just gotten home from the hospital herself (due to an unrelated issue) and is doped up on pain meds. Trying to keep my spirits up and give me a focus point I'll never forget, she utters a sentence that will go down in the books forever; “every time your vagina hurts just think of me!” Even my husband cannot control his laughter. Of all the advice given to us, this was the one simple piece that we never expected to hear from anyone.

Once at the hospital and in the maternity ward, they check me in and hook me up to the monitors. The nurse knows that this is my second and the circumstances with her and asks if I have ever gone through the process of being “checked.” Towards the end with my first I tell her I had so many appointments and things going on, I was sure that at some point they had to have. Well let me tell you, no they did not because I would have remembered that exam!! So the nurse has me give her the “frog legs” and tells me to take a deep breath and relax. Okay, I can do that no problem; with her gloves on she begins. Just when I think that she is done doing her thing to my hoo-ha, she tells me to take another deep breath and to really try to relax. I'm not going to lie, this worried me just a tad. Before I could finish drawing in a large breath, she was up to her elbow and breathing and relaxing wasn't happening! All at the same time, I find myself holding back uncomfortable laughter because now, my vagina is hurting and all I can think about is my friend's humorous advice.