"I had always had female OB-GYNs. I was very nervous about potentially having a male doctor at my birth. Fortunately, my OB was on call the night I went into labor. As the day rolled on and I wasn't progressing much, she went home and introduced me to a resident who was going to be checking in on me. She asked me if that was OK, and at that point I didn't really care.

When it was finally time to push, I was stuck with the resident for a while. They had to wake him to come to my birth because he was napping. So, in between contractions, which weren't that close together, he was sitting there half awake and half asleep just staring at me and my spread eagle legs. I would laugh later at how I went from not wanting a male doctor, to having this guy just sitting there zoning out on all my glory."

"I was in labor for 70 plus hours, so for me nothing was funny."

"During my labor, my doctor asked me what my first meal would be. I wanted a twice baked chocolate croissant from this awesome bakery, and in my foggy pregnancy brain, I swear this conversation took place at the same time as she delivered the placenta. 'And now I'm going to take out the the placenta! What do you think you're going to eat, Mama? Oooooh, those croissants are delicious! Did you know they have like 2,000 calories in them? And heeeeere's the placenta! Stay over there, Daddy!' Swear to God."

"With my daughter, we went and bought a car about 45 minutes before I had her. Our car had broken down the week before, and we knew we needed a car to bring her home. We went to the dealership that morning, and my back started really hurting and I kept feeling like I had to poop.

After shopping for three hours, my back felt like it was breaking so we figured we would go in (although I was convinced that I wasn't in labor). When we got to triage, I was already dilated to eight centimeters! As soon as I signed the papers for the epidural, my water broke. No epidural, no OB-GYN. Two pushes later, there was my little girl in my arms."

"I had to be induced, so 24 hours before, the OB wanted to do a Foley catheter to manually dilate my cervix to a three. He inserted the rubber tubing with my legs in the stirrups and filled it with water. While tying the end, his hand slipped and all of the water squirted him in the face. I laughed, and it squirted more."

"Once I was in triage, my contractions really started to kick in, but no one had come by to put us in a room. I sent my husband out to get someone. The nurse checked me, and I was nine centimeters. The look on my face when I found out I wasn't going to get an epidural was worse than the face I made during contractions.

Not five minutes later, with my sister and husband holding my hands, I told the nurse I had to push. She told me not to, but I pushed anyway (how could I not?) and my son emerged. No doctor, no nurse... just a baby now out on the table. My husband said, 'Um, the baby is out!' When I had to sign the paperwork for the birth, I left the space about the delivering doctor blank, and asked if I could write in my husband and sister."

"My hubby got upset when after I'd been in labor for 34 hours and couldn't push anymore, the nurses were talking about their dogs and lost suction on my son's head."

"My husband had been working like crazy during the last part of my pregnancy. He had just been to the field before I went into labor and was projected to go back a week after I delivered. While I was in full blown labor I kept asking him, through my never ending tears, to 'please stop working, just for this moment!' It was pretty hilarious since he wasn't working, but playing Clash of Clans!"

"When I arrived at the hospital, I was introduced to a nurse who hooked me up to monitors and proceeded to check my dilation. She was none-too-gentle and despite my high pain threshold, she reduced me (and my husband) to tears before I whimpered, 'Please stop.' She complied and proceeded to announce, 'You're only dilated 1 cm. Your cervix was up and behind the baby's head, so I tried to stretch if for you.'

She walked out before I could fully grasp the torture she had just subjected me to. A few minutes later she came back to let me know she had called my OB, who pronounced her a bad nurse for making me cry and that I was not going to be admitted. I may be the only pregnant woman in the world who was actually happy to not be admitted to the hospital."

"During the birth of my first child, my water never broke. The bag of waters was bulging out. My labor and delivery team said it was super rare, then asked if they could show some students. At that point, I didn't care. So first baby and everything is just on display for a bunch of students. Then other doctors heard about it and came to look, too."

"I'm an American living in Honduras. When I was pregnant with my first child, there was a military coup. The president was ousted, and in the aftermath, there were protests and a city-wide curfew. It was 11 p.m. when my water broke, and we were 45 minutes from the hospital in the capital. We were driving past police checkpoints and got pulled over at one. My husband was pointing frantically at my belly and yelling, 'Hospital! Hospital!'"

"When I was in labor with my first, I had been on hospital bed rest for several weeks so I still had most of the monitors on during labor. For whatever reason I had focused on one monitor and constantly wanted to know what it was reporting. The nurses had told me that labor would throw off the results and not to pay any attention to it, but I was still laser focused on it. I kept asking my husband to tell me what it was reporting.

My usually very supportive husband was arguing with me and refusing to read me the results. He kept saying they don't mean anything. I have never wished for a frying pan that I could use to smack him over the head more than at that moment. You don't argue with a woman in labor!"

"Since I was induced, I couldn't eat or drink all day. I got so thirsty I couldn't stand it, and I was so completely over ice chips. I kept begging for 'a damn yellow Gatorade!' So finally my husband made everyone in the room turn around so they wouldn't see and he gave me a sip."