In 2006, I was two months pregnant when I got arrested with two of my girlfriends. My friends got into a fight with another girl. At the time, myself, my girlfriends and the other girl were all struggling with addiction.

Police took us to Riverhead Correctional Facility, a jail on Long Island, New York. At first, I didn’t worry about being pregnant with my third child in jail because I knew I wasn’t guilty of a crime. I was in the car at the time of the fight, and I would never get involved in a fight while I was pregnant.

The state had other ideas about my guilt.

About six months before I was arrested for the fight, I had completed a one-year sentence for felony acting-in-concert. (Police thought I was refusing to give them information about a friend involved in a robbery, but I really didn’t have it.) I faced the same judge for the fight, and because the other girl claimed my friends and I also stole from her, I was also facing robbery and acting-in-concert charges.

I wasn’t able to afford my own lawyer, so I had to take what Suffolk County gave me. At first, I was assigned a public defender. But because I had co-defendants, I was switched to an “18b lawyer,” a private lawyer who represents indigent people. A lot of people plead guilty in cases like mine in exchange for a lesser charge, but my lawyer and I refused. My case went to trial. I ended up sitting in jail, pregnant, waiting for my co-defendants to get their own deals and sentences. Their lawyers wanted them to get sentenced before they signed statements saying that I had nothing to do with what happened.

This pregnancy at age 23 was high-risk because of a mix of health concerns. I had high blood pressure, I had gained a lot of weight, and I was in danger of developing gestational diabetes. And both times I had given birth, my water didn’t break. I needed medical assistance in order to dilate enough to deliver my babies.

To make matters worse, it was impossible for me to maintain proper nutrition in jail.

Myself, my doctor and my lawyer tried everything to get me better food — writing prescription diets and sending letters to the Suffolk County sheriff’s office, social workers in the jail, and anyone else we could. But we were unsuccessful.

My obstetrician on the outside was able to monitor my health at weekly appointments, but every trip to my doctor meant a disturbing transport process.

Seven months after I was arrested, I started experiencing contractions. It was mid-February and sometime after midnight. I began screaming, and a woman further down the block called for an officer. For what felt like hours, I waited in a transfer cell for an ambulance and sheriff’s deputies to come. Then I was shackled and handcuffed during the ride.

After I arrived at Peconic Bay Hospital, the nurses and an ER doctor who evaluated me found that I was having “false” Braxton Hicks contractions. My baby wouldn’t be born that night, but I didn’t want to go back to jail. I was worried that I would have complications and hemorrhage while I was waiting for an ambulance, but they still took me back to Riverside.

A week later, on Feb. 19, 2006, I went into labor for real. Again at night, but not as late, I had to wait alone in a transfer cell for an ambulance and deputies to arrive. I was in so much pain, I was screaming and crying. By the time I got to the hospital, I was bleeding.

I had given birth before, but I’d never experienced anything like this. No one told me what would happen, or how to prepare to have a baby when you’re incarcerated.

Read the full article about giving birth in prison by Rebecca Figueroa as told to Carla Canning at The Marshall Project.