PLENTY OF MOTHERS have horror stories about their first pregnancies - nonstop morning sickness, babies born in cars on the way to the hospital. But mine tops them all. How many women can boast that they carried a baby to term while recovering from a shark attack?

As a lifeguard working near my home in Melbourne Beach, Florida, I knew that sharks were an occasional hazard. In training classes, I learned to keep an eye out for fins in the ocean and get swimmers out quickly at the first sign of danger. But I'd never seen anyone badly hurt by a shark.

Surf and sand had been a part of my life since 1987, when I was twenty and became a full-time lifeguard. I've always loved being in the outdoors and working out, and patrolling the beach allowed me to do both. I especially enjoyed lifeguard competitions, which consist of a number of swimming, sprinting and running events. I won the national championship twice in a sprint in which I had to retrieve a series of flags.

When our victims needed medical attention, we called the Indian River Shores public safety department, which handles police, fire and rescue calls. One of the emergency medical technicians at Indian River was Bill Schauman, who often surfed at our beach on his days off. When I was assigned to teach a lifesaving class to his department, Bill and I started talking, and things just took off. We were married - by the beach, naturally - in 1992.

We both wanted to start a family together as soon as possible (Bill has two older children from a first marriage), and I was delighted when, right around our first anniversary, I learned I was pregnant. I was put on light duty, at low traffic beaches where I wouldn't have to do a lot of intensive rescue work.

On the Florida coast, fall can be a dangerous season. That's when the mullet migrate up the ocean in schools so thick that they look like a huge black underwater cloud. They're known as "bait fish" for good reason-sharks and tarpons love them. You can see the sharks' fins and the tarpons' white scales as they glide quietly toward their prey.

One day, in October 1993, as we were getting ready to go to work, Bill told me, "Don't go swimming. The bait fish are out." I didn't take him very seriously. He's a worrier, always warning me about one thing or another. And there was no way I was going to stay out of the water for a month and a half until the mullet had moved on. I was six and a half months pregnant, and swimming kept me in shape and the water felt good on my heavy belly. So I just said, "Yeah, yeah."

It was a little before ten A.M. when I reached the lifeguard stand, and the beach was practically deserted. I didn't see any sign of danger, so I told Chris, the other guard on duty, "I'm going swimming. Whistle if you see any bait fish." I hung my whistle around my neck and grabbed my flotation buoy; every lifeguard is required to have her equipment on hand while on duty.

I went about seventy-five yards from shore, then began doing the crawl. It was so relaxing and peaceful that I wasn't aware of anything but the water.

Then wham! Without warning, something heavy slammed into me, plowing into my left side and spinning me completely around. It was like running into a cement wall. Stunned and sputtering, I tried to get my bearings as I treaded water. It took a few seconds before I became aware of an awful burning in my arm and leg and a sensation of pressure on my stomach and back. I knew immediately what had happened: shark!

Pulling my left hand out of the water, I could see blood dripping down to my elbow. But I was more concerned about the baby, so I rolled on my right side and checked my stomach. It looked okay, thank God. Then I lifted my aching leg out as far as I could and saw that my thigh had been laid open, red flesh hanging like raw meat.

So there I was, in water up to my chest, a pool of blood spreading rapidly around me. The only other people on shore were an elderly couple who didn't see me.

Suddenly, my whole body flooded with panic, and I began hyperventilating. Calm down, I told myself. Do what you were trained to do. Trying to breathe normally, I started swimming to shore, using my good arm and leg.

As I got closer to the beach, a three-foot wave submerged me. It must have been only a couple of seconds before I fought my way back to the surface, but it felt like an eternity. Then, just as I started swimming again, another wave pushed me under. Ordinarily, I would relax and ride the waves rather than trying to fight them, but I was desperate to get out.

Once I hit the beach, I managed a kind of limping gallop toward the lifeguard stand, blowing my whistle as I went. The adrenaline pumping through my body was keeping me from feeling too much pain. It wasn't until I was almost to the tower that Chris finally noticed me, as did the older couple. "Call nine-one-one! I've been attacked by a shark!" I yelled.

I was so wired that I paced around for a moment before Chris and the older man got me to sit down. Chris phoned for an ambulance, but I knew the county medical team would take too long to arrive. "Call Bill," I said. This wasn't his zone, but he worked just ten minutes down the road. When Chris called him, it took Bill a minute to realize he wasn't joking.

Bill arrived with the police within minutes, and I could finally relax. I knew he'd make everything all right. Even so, the worried look on his face told me all I needed to know. He helped finish the bandaging, and the rescue team lifted me into the ambulance, which had arrived by then.

The emergency-room doctor examined me, and the hospital obstetrician checked to make sure the baby was all right. While I was waiting for the surgeon, doctors, nurses and other personnel kept coming by to see the shark-bite victim. For about an hour, I was the hospital's star attraction. A medic even took an instant picture of me for the record.

Finally, the surgical team arrived and started to work on my leg. "Don't give me anything that will hurt the baby," I warned. So all I had was a local anesthetic as the jagged edges of the wound were cut away. It took three layers of stitches to close the muscles and skin of my thigh. My hand was so swollen that my wedding rings had to be cut off. I could feel the baby kicking away all the while. The obstetrician checked me again and said that the movement was from all the excitement. I didn't lose enough blood to require a transfusion, so I was sent home that night with mild painkillers.

The next day, my arm and leg were still sore, and oddly, so was my back. Bill massaged me as I moaned, "It hurts, it hurts"- then the pain abruptly went away. "What do you mean, it's gone?" Bill said, startled. "That's a contraction!" The shark attack had put me into premature labor, and I didn't even realize it.

We rushed to the hospital, where my obstetrician put me on a fetal monitor. Giving birth this soon would be too dangerous for the baby, whose lungs weren't fully developed, so I was given a prescription for a muscle relaxant and told to go on complete bed rest at home.

Two weeks later, it was clear that the drug had stopped working; the contractions were coming closer and closer together. I had to be admitted to the hospital again-just before Thanksgiving. On top of that, I was running a fever, possibly from bacteria in the shark bite. The doctors consulted a specialist that evening, and I was airlifted to a hospital in West Palm Beach that was equipped to handle high-risk pregnancies.

My family was great throughout all this. They called me and brought food when I had cravings, and Bill slept in a cot in my room on his days off. We celebrated Bill's fortieth birthday in my hospital room, but the guests had to leave early because all the excitement was bringing on contractions. My one comfort was being able to hear my baby's steady heartbeat on the monitor. I wouldn't let the nurses turn the volume down.

Finally, after more than two weeks, the doctors were able to send me home with a medication pump and a fetal monitor. (My shark-bite stitches were out by this time.) Three times a week, I went to a therapist who helped me regain strength in my injured fingers.

I was in and out of the hospital four times-once on Christmas Day to control my contractions, before my water finally broke at Six A.M. on January 14, 1994. Our son was delivered naturally later that morning. I was amazed to see him looking up at me and cooing. Our struggle was finally over.

Bill and I had agreed on a first name for a boy early on, but while we were holding our baby in the hospital, I suggested to Bill that we give him a middle name that would commemorate his unique story. Our son's legal name is Macintyre William Shark Schauman.

Mac is five now. He's a very sweet-natured child, patient and generous with his sister, Casey, three, and brother Keegan, who's almost one. I'm retired from lifeguarding parenting is challenging enough.

Shark experts think I was bitten by a shark about eight to ten feet long. Sandbar sharks and bull sharks both frequent Florida waters, but there's no way to tell which species attacked me. The shark may have been attracted by the yellow bathing cap I was wearing.

Apart from Macintyre, the only souvenirs I have of that day are the scars, some weakness in my left hand-and a great story to tell. My tale is featured in a series called Savage Seas, produced by Thirteen WNET, which will air on PBS on July 11 and 12. The four-part special also covers other watery hazards, such as ice floes, dangerous surf and ocean storms.

People ask me if I'm scared to watch the movie laws now, and I'm not. We take our family to the beach and to the shark tank at Sea World all the time. I don't want my children to be terrified of the ocean, which is so much a part of our home. But I have to admit, the first time I went swimming after the attack, I stepped on a fish that wiggled under my foot. You should have seen me rocket out of the water