The road to motherhood began one April evening when I was induced four weeks early. Up until that point, my pregnancy was complicated, so I figured delivery wouldn’t be easy, either.

After struggling through fertility issues, and having more people in my crotch than a hooker in Vegas, I had no shame. I didn’t even flinch when someone told me to spread my legs.

As draining as they were, those long days in the fertility clinic gave me an amazing little boy. I mean, how many women can say they got knocked up by a beautiful, African-American woman named Rhonda? See, this is why this story is a little different than most.

But no matter how much Rhoda tried to talk me through the next stages of pregnancy, and everything that followed a successful intrauterine insemination, I was never prepared for what would come next.

“Babe, are you ready? We have to get to the hospital,” my husband, Hunter, asks from the doorway.

Sitting in the middle of the nursery, I hold a fluffy elephant against my chest. Am I ready? No, I’m not. “I think I changed my mind,” I tell him.

Hunter joins me on the carpet and sits Indian style across from me. “What are you worried about?”

I glare at him. How could he ask such a stupid question? “All of it,” I tell him.

Induction. Nothing about giving birth has ever seemed natural to me. But neither did growing another human inside me, yet it still happened. I trust that’s the way delivery will go, but what if it’s too much for me to handle? What if I can’t do it?

Hunter takes my hand and kisses the back of it. If I didn’t have a huge belly in the way, I’d climb into his lap and rest my head against his chest. “Why can’t you do it for me?”

“Because,” he tries to explain. “If men had babies, there’d be four people on this planet.”

He’s right. My husband passes out from the sight of blood. And needles. A bee sting once had him laid up on the couch for three days. And don’t even get me started on a “man cold.” That’s at least a week of save me’s and help me’s. “You’re probably right.” I agree.

He stands up and pulls me to my feet. I grab the hospital bag off the rocking chair and take one last look at our peaceful home. It’s like saying goodbye to one stage of our life and welcoming another, and of course it makes me cry.

I cry so often these days, Hunter doesn’t bat a lash. He just hands me a tissue and helps me into the car where I’m given full control of the radio. But this isn’t one of our drives to the doctor, or the mall. We’re going to the hospital, and I can’t think about anything else. That’s why I let his terrible music play instead.

Once we’re registered, more strangers come to take a look at my vageen. At this point, it’s like working in a museum and every day someone new comes to check out the display. It’s a lot of pressure for a vagina to live up to, but she’s done me proud.

But now that the smells of freshly waxed floors and antiseptic are inching their way up my nostrils, I think my entire body is starting to panic. Maybe it’s a fear of hospitals I didn’t realize I had. Or, not understanding the doctor’s accent half the time she speaks. Whatever it is, I'm just so anxious.

My anxiousness doesn't ease as one April night in the delivery room stretches into three long days.

I’ve not eaten.

I’ve thrown up.

I’ve been poked and prodded.

And there’s no baby to show for my hard work.

“Try Pitocin,” they said.

“It won’t be so bad,” they promised.

They all lied.

The progress I wished for suddenly becomes my worst nightmare. With contractions so intense, my uterus is punching me Mike Tyson style. And that lisp of his about knocks me out. “Calm down, Kyra,” Hunter whispers.

“I quit, Hunt. I can’t do this,” I tell him as tears stream down my face.

You heard right, I’m a quitter.

A labor quitter.

Before Hunter can come up with something to convince me otherwise, I sling my legs over the side of the bed, ready to go home to my nice, warm bed and comfy blankets—none of these thin hospital sheets and hundred degree thermostats.

Consider this #Momfail#1.

After I shut down labor, the nurse laughs at me. She actually had the balls to giggle. I’ve worked in the emergency room at this same hospital. I’ve been in rooms with grown men who sobbed about kidney stones, swearing they’d never complain again if the pain would go away.

I laughed at them, too.

But like them, I’m not prepared for this.

“Get back into bed,” Hunter whispers, brushing a piece of hair out of my eye.

I listen because where else can I go? It’s not like I can call Uber to pull up alongside my bed and get me the hell out of here.

“Why is it so damn hot in here?”

My husband tries to spoon some more ice chips into my mouth, but I push them away. “Please put those in an ice pack. I’m sweating.”

The nurse and Hunter exchange glances, but I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. Maybe about the quitting part, but now that I’ve recommitted to pushing this kid out, I think I’ve earned the right to some ice in a plastic bag. BPA free of course.

My eyes are closed when the nurse returns, but her Crocs squeak on the floor at just the right moment. I expect my ice, but instead she presses an adhesive ice pack right to my forehead. I kind of love her for it, too.

Finally, my husband smiles and for the next couple hours, life is tolerable. With my ice and the epidural, I feel like I might be able to do this. Quitting is just a distant memory which we’ll laugh about someday.

And not long after my third ice pack is replaced, my little boy is born. Holding him in my arms for the first time, he wraps his little hand around my index finger and glances at my ice pack. I think he might be jealous.

While the rest of my family meets my little guy, the nurse helps me into the bathroom and holds out her hand. “You want me to put those on?” I ask her.

She holds up the biggest pair of see through granny panties I’ve ever seen. They’re so horrific, they’d mortify Victoria and definitely divulge her Secret. But this is the same nurse who brought me the ice packs, so I trust her.

#Momfail#2 happens fairly quickly.

My nurse hands me a new gown and a bag of cooling pads for my stylish panties. It only takes one glance before I make the connection. “Ohmygod,” I whisper. “Please tell me you didn’t let me give birth with a sanitary napkin stuck to my forehead?”

“You’re not the first,” she says. “The cooling gel serves many purposes.”

Suddenly, she’s a mix between Yoda and a Girl Scout and while I’d applaud her resourcefulness, all I want to do is cry. I brought a human into the world with a pad stuck to my head.