The Nightmare Birth Story That Most Women Will Actually Be Jealous Of

Instead of having to suffer through the agonizing pain of childbirth, simply sleeping through it and waking up to find your newborn might sound like the ultimate dream to some moms. For Alice Payne, this was her reality.

After doctors didn't realize how far along Alice was during labor because of a malfunctioning machine, they gave the soon-to-be new mom some medicine to ease her pain, but they didn't realize she was just about 10 centimeters dilated. The medication caused Alice to doze off and by the time she woke up an hour later, her baby boy was almost completely born.

Alice told the Daily Mail that she was medically induced at 38 weeks for Philip's birth and that doctors were "amazed" to see her pushing the baby out while still napping. "Because the contraction monitor wasn't reading me properly, doctors didn't realize that I was as far along as I actually was," Alice said. "So I was given some drugs to let me nap for a couple of hours, but 30 minutes later they realized I was ready to push."

As doctors were injecting a hormone, Syntocinon, every 30 to 60 minutes, they were tracking her contractions with an attached monitor. However, the machine read that the contractions weren't intensifying, only fluctuating between 20 to 40 percent of her muscles engaged, so they continued to increase the amount of hormone injections. Since Alice was in such a relaxed state, she was almost rushed to an emergency C-section, but instead, the doctors, midwife, and nurse witnessed the "weirdest thing" that they had ever seen.

While remaining asleep, Alice's body responded to her husband's voice telling her to push. Incredibly, Alice only woke up for the last 10-15 minutes of the delivery and fell back asleep shortly after the baby was born. "Though I'm pleased I missed the pain of labor, I do wish I had been more present for my first baby's birth," Alice said. "Now when he's older and asks me, I'll have to tell him I nodded off."

This post was originally published on Jan. 20, 2017.