Celebrity Birth Stories: 12 Moms Reveal What Happened When They Went Into Labor

When Megan Fox welcomed her first son Noah in 2012, things didn't exactly go as planned. The Transformers star revealed that although she thought she had hoped to forgo meds, she was screaming for an epidural when husband Brian Austin Green was driving her to the hospital. "It was level orange alert pain," the actress told Access Hollywood shortly after she gave birth. "It hurts so bad. It was so intense. And I thought I was gonna be really tough and make it, I was gonna labor to like 8 cm ... but the first contraction that I got was horrific!" She also revealed that, despite her pain, she tried to dry her hair before heading to the hospital. "I had wet hair so I was trying to blow dry my hair before I went to the hospital," Fox said. "I didn't want to go to the hospital with wet hair!"

After watching Ricki Lake's documentary, The Business of Being Born, singer Pink had her heart set on a natural birth. Her daughter Willow had other plans, though. When Pink and husband Carey Hart welcomed their daughter in June of 2011, it was via cesarean. "She was in the frank breech position, which is head up with her legs up by her head in a pike position. We tried everything to turn her around," Pink told People. "Turns out this little girl had other plans -- she is my daughter, after all." The pop star is perfectly happy with the way things went down, though. She added, "It all turned out perfectly in the end, even though it wasn't what we intended, because she is healthy and happy and so am I."

Naturally, when Kourtney Kardashian welcomed her children -- Mason, Penelope, and Reign -- it was a family affair. The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star's first two births in 2009 and 2012 were televised on her reality show, and in both instances, the petite mama pulled her children out and placed them directly on her chest. Kardashian told Us Weekly, "[Penelope] was coming out, and I was thinking, 'I should pull her.' With Mason, I had no idea I was going to do that. This time, I thought, 'This is what I'm supposed to do.'"

When Christina Applegate welcomed her daughter, Sadie Grace LeNoble, in January of 2011, she got an epidural. But the Up All Night star told Ellen DeGeneres, "I didn't like the feeling of numbness ... It was really creepy to me. It was too much, so we turned it off and we opted to go all the way, feeling it all." After 18 hours, Applegate and husband Martyn LeNoble welcomed their sweet daughter, and the actress surprised herself with what she did next. "I dropped my gown, which I don't do. This part of my body is very private to me," she said, referencing her 2008 double mastectomy. "That's a real private place. A place that I don't have a good relationship with, let's say. But at that moment of pulling [Sadie] out and I just tore that thing off. There's a room full of people that I don't know. Nurses and doctors. And she and I just laid there. It was the best thing that's ever happened to me."

When Jessica Alba gave birth to her second daughter in 2011, she and husband, Cash Warren, were thrown for a loop. The Fantastic Four actress delivered her daughter "en caul." Alba told OK! magazine, "When I delivered Haven she was born still inside the amniotic sac, which is rare ... The doctor had never seen anything like it before. He grabbed the nurse and said: 'Look at this!' I was in the middle of pushing and he told me to hold on a minute and not to push! He was wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt and said: 'Oh I have to get my scrubs on for this!' The sac burst on its own after she came out. It was a trip."

In an interview with the Today show, Kelly Preston revealed that she was silent during the 2010 birth of son Benjamin. The actress, who practices Scientology along with husband John Travolta, said of her birth, "It's just no words as much as possible. If you need to moan, if you cry out or all of that, of course, is normal. But just bringing them in as peaceful and gentle a way as possible." She also credits her silent births to having such good kids, "My kids have always been amazing, very calm, very peaceful, happy," Preston said, "And I absolutely know that it's very much because of that."

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen set tongues wagging in 2010 when she said that her natural, drug-free birth to son Benjamin "didn't hurt in the slightest." Tom Brady's wife revealed that she gave birth in her bathtub at home, and that her labor and delivery was a total of eight hours. "The whole time my mind was focused in each contraction on the thought 'my baby is closer to coming out,'" Bundchen said. "It wasn't like, 'this is so painful.' So I transformed that intense feeling into a hope of seeing him."

The Victoria's Secret model also opted out of an epidural during the 2011 birth of her son, Flynn, but wasn't quite as serene about the experience as fellow supermodel Gisele. The brunette beauty, who forbade then-husband Orlando Bloom from using the bathroom during her labor (he reportedly peed in a bottle!). Kirr told InStyle Australia, "I actually thought I was going to die at one point and left my body. I was looking down on myself, the pain was so intense."

When Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon welcomed their twins, Moroccan and Monroe, in 2011, it was in a way that only a diva could. The couple had a live 1995 performance of Fantasy playing when their little ones were born. The reason? Mariah wanted the babies' grand entrance into the world to coincide with the applause from the show. Cannon told The Talk, "It was definitely over the top. I was the production manager of the whole production. I was the DJ. I had the camera on one hand. The lighting had to be perfect. My wife was like, 'If you've got a camera, you make sure the lighting is right.'"

Like fellow reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian, Zoe's labor with son Skylar was filmed for the small screen. Fans of The Rachel Zoe Project got to see the star's hubby, Roger Berman, grab a camera to document the experience -- and hear Zoe, who was fixing her hair in the bathroom in between contractions -- tell him, "I'm in so much pain. Out of my face."

Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik gave birth to her second son, Frederick, at home in 2008. But, there was a twist -- her eldest son, Miles, then 2-years-old, was present for the birth. Bialik, who was married to Michael Stone at the time, described the experience to People, saying, "Fred, yes, was born at home, and Miles was able to watch the whole thing from his high chair while eating granola. Fortunately it was a very fast labor because I think Miles would've been bored if it was longer than the hour and a half it was."

Talk about a dramatic delivery: Marla Sokoloff actually fainted before going into labor -- at 34 weeks -- with her second daughter, Olive, on March 12, 2015. The actress shared her birth story as a celebrity blogger for People.com recently, and spared no details of the stressful experience. "When the doctor arrived, she simply looked at me and said with excitement in her voice, 'You're going to have a baby today!'" Once again, I panicked.

"I asked all of those questions that run through your head when you find out you're about to have a premature baby. Will she be okay? What about her lungs? Will she have to be in the NICU? Why is she coming 6 weeks early?!"

Sokoloff says she eventually calmed down, referring to her labor as "painful fun." Her baby girl (who was healthy, but did in fact need to spend 16 days in the NICU to gain weight and learn to eat without a feeding tube) was born on Friday the 13th.

Copyright © 2015 Meredith Corporation.