At midnight, my midwife, Dana, drove me to the Hollywood Birth Center. My mom, her boyfriend Bob, and my two best friends followed in a separate car. / The Birth Center, until we got there that night, was just an empty house. I took a shower right away because Dana said hot water would ease the pain. By then, I’d been having contractions for eight hours and while the hot water felt hot, it did nothing to ease the pain. So I got out of the shower.