After her first labor-and-delivery experience, Camila McConaughey learned to go with the flow — but her son Levi's birth story is certainly one for the books.
PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at the entrepreneur and mother of three's interview with Sarah Hyland for this week's episode of "Lady Parts," in which she opens up about how her plan for a vaginal, non-medicated birth didn't go at all the way she and husband Matthew McConaughey had planned for Levi, who's now 12.
"I was in labor for three days," says McConaughey, 38. "We tried to go as natural as we could in a hospital setting. So when my water broke, they're like, 'Well, should we give you the stuff to [induce] contractions?' And we're like, 'No, no way.' "
She recalls how she and Matthew, 51, "took over" their hospital room, joking that "the nurses were scared to come in" and that "all the windows were foggy." They got so comfortable that they "had music popping," with her husband even "DJing in the background."
Her contractions began on their own the day after she checked in to the hospital. "The contractions came so strong that I would be in the rocking chair just breathing through the contractions and then I would pass out, literally, from exhaustion, 'cause it went on for so long," says McConaughey.
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For the then-expecting first-time mom, the experience was kicked up to even more discomfort when the doctor requested she move from the rocking chair so he could check her cervix.
"I'm in the chair and the doctor's like, 'Can you move to the table?' I was like, 'No, I cannot move to the table. I can't move anywhere!' And he goes, 'Well, I need to check — I need to get in there and check.' And I was like, 'Well, get in there and check!' " she says, laughing. "I felt so bad. We really wanted to go through without taking [medication]. We wanted to have that experience, and that what we planned on."
After trying to push Levi out unsuccessfully ("The crown of the head would come out and then he'd go right back in," McConaughey recalls), "The doctor was like, 'That's it — emergency [cesarean] section.' "
"So right when I started getting groggy from the anesthesia, all I could hear was them trying to find the heartbeat and they couldn't find it. It was really scary for me," says the Yummy Spoonfuls co-founder.
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After the emergency c-section, "The doctor was like, 'Listen, he knew how he needed to come out.' The way that the cord was around his neck, it would've actually made him not well," McConaughey says.
Since Levi's arrival, the couple have gone on to welcome two more children: daughter Vida, 10, then son Livingston, 8 next month. And Levi's birth taught his mom a lot about control.
"That was my first experience giving birth and right then, to me, it was like, 'Okay, forget about anything you ever learned about [how] you can plan something. This is bigger than you, Camila. This is bigger than anything … it's not in your control,' " she says.
McConaughey adds, "So with my other two pregnancies I just kinda went, 'It's however you wanna come. I'm here for you.' "
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