My daughter Emily was born on April 15, 2004 (tax day!) at 12:19 a.m. My labor was amazingly fast after a very long, agonizing pregnancy of worry and heartache. You see, Emily was born with a complete cleft lip and palate. We found out about Emily's cleft during a routine 20 week sonogram.

I started getting contractions the morning of April 14th, but they were mild and went away with rest. I was told by my midwife that it was probably false labor, although I was three days late. After an entire day of ongoing low back pain and sciatica accompanied by irregular contractions, we decided to go to the hopsital at around 6 pm, but we didn't make it there until 9 pm because we had to find someone to watch my daughter (then two years old).

When they hooked me up to all the monitoring equipment at the hospital, the contractions had all but stopped and my midwife came in and told me it looked like a false alarm. I was only dilated to about 2 cm which was unchanged since a couple of days before. I was really bummed! But a half hour later she checked my cervix and I was at 4 cm without any contractions at all. So she broke my water and what happened next amazed the entire staff of the hospital.

About 10 minutes after they broke my water, I began getting intense and I mean INTENSE contractions. The midwife sat with me for the first three and told me she'd be back in a couple of hours to check on me. She fully expected the labor to last a while. I got up to take a warm shower and was hit with about three contractions just on the short walk to the bathroom. I barely made it into the shower before I was hit with a contraction so strong I nearly fell to my knees. About 15 minutes had passed since the midwife had left the room, and about 30 since they broke my water.

I managed to get onto the bed somehow and told my husband to get the nurse and QUICK. The reason was that the last contraction had really felt very similar to the type of contractions you get at the end of labor - the transition phase. He called the nurse and she rolled her eyes and said it was way too soon for drugs and that I should take a shower. I said I'd tried, but the contractions were too strong. So she humored me - she checked my cervix, got very quiet and then said, "I'm not finding a cervix" which means I was very dilated. She then noticed I was pushing (I didn't even notice) and she screamed, "don't push!"

After that, everything happened quickly. The room filled up. The midwife ran in at top speed and checked my cervix which was at 9.5 cm - I had another contraction and it was at 10 cm - fully dilated! The midwife said, "okay, push now!" and I waited for the next contraction and pushed. Out came Emily barely an hour after my water broke!

Even though she was born with a cleft lip, she was beautiful and all the nursing staff on duty that day were wonderful. They said it was one of the fastest births they'd ever experienced. Too fast for drugs, too fast for showers, too fast for laboring in the birthing tub.

Emily was two on Saturday and she's doing great. You can see her medical progress on her website at www.cleftstories.com.