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Months of anticipation and I had almost reached my due date. My mom had arrived that morning to help me out. The doctors said I could go at any time. I was puttering around the house when suddenly the phone rang.

"This is Laura from your employer's insurance company. I am calling to find out why you haven't been to work this week," a curt voice on the other end chirped. I quickly explained that my due date was tomorrow and I was ready to give birth at any time. "Yes, but did your doctor take you out of work? If not you are going to have a problem with your employer." I thought is she kidding me, what do they want me to give birth at my desk? I told her I was not feeling well all week and in fact right now she was really causing me a lot of stress. She said she would call back at another time. As soon as I hung up I could feel my emotions getting the better of me. Don't these bureaucrats know that my hormones are out of whack. Next the tears began, then the sobbing. My mom heard me crying and called down, "Are you OK?" I told her about my call chuckling between my sobs, "I think these people want to put me into labor." I was really feeling worn out and had a chill so Mom told me to go lay down under the covers.

As if it wasn't bad enough that I had been waking up ten times a night to urinate, a while later I woke up in a wet bed. No labor pains, but I thought I should call my doctor just in case. The doctor said I had better get over to the hospital. "It was just a trickle," I protested, but her mind was made up. So through the ice storm my husband, myself, and my mom drove over to the hospital.

Upon arrival someone took my temperature and it was high so they told me to lie down and fill out some paperwork. Then a nurse came in and hooked a monitor on my belly. We watched the waves fill the paper like some failed lie detector test. The nurse said, "Don't you feel anything?" But I didn't. She told me that most patients who had waves like that on the readout would be screaming right then. And I thought I had a low threshold for pain. Maybe this isn't going to be as hard as I expected, I thought.

They called the doctor to say I was 3 inches dilated but she said it would take a long time so I should save my energy and rest and the staff would call her to the hospital when I was ready. She also said if I needed a painkiller that would be okay as it would help me get some much needed sleep. My guess was she was waiting for the storm to pass before venturing out.

I laid

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