Two days ago my oldest daughter turned 11. We got her a cake, but we had celebrated it a couple of weeks ago with a few of her friends over for a sleepover.

Since I never posted before about her birth story, what better time than now.

It was on my 17th birthday that I had found out that I was pregnant. I never imagined in my life that I would have a baby at that age. Telling my parents was the hardest thing I had to do, surprisingly enough they were supportive, disappointed but willing to help me with whatever choice I wanted to make. Her father (whom I am NOT with) kept saying, "get rid of it" and other nasty comments like that. Once I knew I was pregnant, I knew I would keep the baby, even though I knew it would be hard, especially in school, grade 12.

My pregnancy was awful, I was sick for 7 of the 9 months. Swelled up like a balloon at the end of it and was 2 weeks late.

Finally, the day before she was born, as I was getting ready to go to school, I had the lovely bloody show. I figured hell, I know it'll take time, but what other good reason to stay home, so I did. Labor started that night at around 8pm. I had contractions regularly throughout the night and about 4 am I went to the hospital. I was scheduled for an induction that morning if I didn't go in labor on my own so the nurses had the room booked for me. In I went. I was hooked up to the monitor and was checked, I was 5cm dilated. The nurse asked if I wanted pain meds and I did. So after I had demerol the labor slowed down. Great, so walk, walk and walk. Around 9am things really didn't progress much so on the pitocin. About 20 minutes after this started, that's when the torture began. The contractions were actually non-stop, for 2 hrs. Well of course that's how it felt. I'm sure there were spaces but at that time, I didnt feel any break at all. I remember hearing the nurse saying, we have to stop this now, I took that as a bad sign.

Anyway, they gave me med after med and eventually I just got exhausted after all of this. At this hospital there were no epidurals so I just had demerol.

I finally was fully dilated and time to push, after 2 hrs of pushing the Dr decided to use the vacuum to assist the baby out. He put that on her head twice and it didn't work, popped off both times. Lovely, then I remember the biggest looking salad tongs on earth...... FORCEPS! Ack! He explained it and whatnot, and then in they went and as I pushed, he pushed apart ME to try and help the baby out. OUCHFUCKINGOUCH! She finally came out after 2 1/2 hrs of pushing, she was OP with a Brow presentation, google that and see what you find.

I was told after the fact, I was lucky she's alive considering she was a vaginal birth. I had an episiotomy too and had asked how many stitches and the Dr. told me he lost count after 50. Nice, just what I needed at 17yrs.

Anyway she weighed in at 7lbs 13oz. 22inches long. She was perfectly healthy with a lovely conehead. Good thing I had no postpartum because I would probably have freaked at sight of her head, with the blisters from the failed vacuum procedure.

When she was about 2 weeks old that when the colic started, she was colicky till she was 5 mos old. I would be up till 3 am each night walking the halls, my father and I would take turns as I studied for exams. How I made it through school and raising her I'll attribute to my parents help, I would never have done it without them.

She's a great kid, just had a rough start, and I'm so glad that I made the right decision almost 12 yrs ago. :)