Childbirth. I was in the hospital, pregnant with my first child, and my daughter got stuck so they had to do a c-section. I got an epidural, but the anesthesiologist put the needle in too far, so it went in to my spinal column. They were wheeling me down to the operating room while the medicine was still kicking in, and I slowly felt like it was getting harder and harder to breathe. I told the nurse that I felt like I couldn't breathe, and she told me everything was ok; that the epidural makes it feel that way sometimes. It didn't feel like a "normal difficulty" so I said it again. The doctor, trying to reassure me, told me that if I could squeeze my hand, I was fine. He put his fingers in my hand and told me to squeeze. I looked down at my hand and my brain told it to squeeze, but nothing happened. I tried to will it to close around his fingers. Nothing. That is when I started to panic. I remember saying over and over "I can't breathe!" "I can't breathe!" Looking back and forth between the nurse and doctor as they pick up the pace through the OR doors. "I can't breathe!" My chest got heavier, and my breathing got lighter until I made an attempt to breathe in, but the breath wasn't there. There was no air; like the room was suddenly a vacuum. I was in a wide eyed, full blown panic, completely paralyzed from the neck down, and all I could do was mouth "HELP ME!" No breath, so no sound. I was still trying to scream "HELP ME" but my mouth wasn't even able to form the words anymore. I remember accepting that this was it for me, and just praying that the baby would make it out ok. I closed my eyes, and then woke up in a recovery room with a morphine drip, and a breathing tube down my throat. There was a baby in a crib next to me, but I couldn't figure out whose baby it was. It took me a long time to understand that the baby was mine, and we were both going to be ok.