On July 5, I took off to Bethel to wait to have my baby. While I was there I mostly stayed indoors. Some days it was too hot to go out, so I stayed in playing cards with my auntie Mary, my cousins Tracy and Daisy, and Tracy's boyfriend, Joe.

Finally on July 31, my contractions started at five o'clock in the morning. I couldn't sleep that good for the rest of the morning. Every time I was just about to sleep my contractions would come again. When I timed my contractions they were four minutes apart. Finally around eight o'clock I woke up my auntie Mary and told her that I was having contractions. Then around ten thirty I woke up my cousin Tracy and told her that I was going to my gram's house. While we were walking my contractions were getting stronger so we went into the national guard building to call my uncle Richard who was driving a Kusko Cab to come pick us up. While we were at my gram's my uncle John and my cousin Doris were there. Finally around twelve o'clock, Tracy and I went to the hospital. When we went into the O.B. room, the nurse who checked me put on a heart and contraction monitor. My contractions were four minutes apart, so they also checked how much I'd dilated. I was dilating fast. But I was having fun during my labor because my cousins, Patricia and Tracy, were there making me laugh and video taping, and they made my labor easier.

Finally, around one thirty in the morning (August 1), the doctor asked me if I wanted to break my water to make my labor faster. I said, yes, and we went into the delivery room where I had a baby boy at two sixteen in the morning. He was seven pounds four ounces and nineteen inches long.

Tanya Peter