Being a week past my due date felt like being stuck in a fat suit with at least 50 lbs of bricks on my back. It was the day of my father's welcome home party, he had just returned home from iraq with a knee injury. it was the first time in a long time that i had seen my dad cry in a long time. he finally got to see my sister's son for the first time, he was already 6 months old. when i saw my dad cry, it also brought tears to my eyes. then it hit me, extreme back pain. i thought nothing of it and just wanted to spend the day with my father. 2 hours later my fiance and i left the party to go back to my parents house to meet up with the family after the party. as we arrived to the house my back pain intensified with burning pains in my stomache. this is when i knew something was wrong. i asked for advice from my mother and my grandmother and they told me i should call my ob's answering service to ask a dr on call about the pains. an agonizing hour later the on call dr told me to come into the hospital that i was in labor! i ended up being 3 cm dialated with contractions every 15 minutes lasting about 2 minutes. after 22 hours of extreme back labor, my contractions intensified to 1 minute apart and lasting for 5 minutes i was only 4 cm dialated. after i finally accepted the epideral the dr told me my daughter was stuck in the birth canal and her heartrate had dropped from a steady 157 to the low 80's. we needed to do an emergency c-section. after another hour my beautiful daughter was here. it was all thanks to seeing my father come home. he truely is my hero!