Chuck was on his way to the east coast to pick up his oldest son, who had decided to come and live with us. I had a busy week at work ahead of me and although I was nearly 8 months pregnant we weren’t all that worried about me being alone for a few days.  A busy week turned into an absolutely indescribably horrible Thursday.  I had a VP in town (which are a collection of stories better told in a dark bar, fully inebriated) and a handful of employee issues..which all exploded within (what seemed like) an hour of each other.  At our last stop of the day I got three frantic phone calls (all from different employees regarding the same situation).  I had to leave our meeting and go play psychologist which meant I had to pawn off a tired VP to the first person who agreed to do a drop off at the airport.  I spent 3 hours counseling two hysterical women that would rather beat each other to death than listen to me say “we can work anything out with proper communication” one more time.  What a ridiculous nightmare.  I was trying everything I could think of to soothe the situation but neither of the (by this time) borderline psychos was willing to shut up and listen (in retrospect I suppose I should have suspended them both and gone home on time!).  So, finally (very worried about my dogs who had been in their kennels for about 12 hours at that point) I left them to what I seriously thought would be a double murder, and went home.  I arrived home at about 7:45pm, let the dogs out and ate.  I was starving!  I was also completely exhausted…physically, emotionally, mentally and whatever other “ill-ees” fit the situation.  I went to bed.  At around 9:00pm I started feeling yucky.  My back was hurting (not necessarily a cause for alarm), my legs were aching (again not necessarily a cause for alarm) and I was definitely having contractions. Crap! I started timing them. Damn those crazy women…they drove me into early labor.   Chuck called at about 9:30pm or so and I told him I wasn’t feeling too good.  He lost his mind.  Tried changing his flight to come home immediately, called and put a good friend on stand by in case I needed help and called me every 15 minutes.  Whew.  I don’t know what was more stressful, dealing with a husband who is 3000 miles away and freaking out or contractions that I’m not supposed to be having.  Finally at about 10:30pm Chuck was so insistent that I go to the hospital, I finally gave in and got ready.  Oh heck, I don’t know who I am kidding.  He didn’t “ask” me if I wanted to go or if I thought I needed to go…he simply called his friend and told him to go pick me up and take me to the hospital..and then informed me of the plan.  Crazy men.  So I succumbed to the insanity of a father to be (again) and went quietly.  I got checked in, stuck and wired up and then just laid in this horrible bed for hours…as the contractions got increasingly stronger and more frequent.  Crap again. I was not at all prepared to have a baby right then..daddy wasn’t home, the baby’s room wasn’t done, I didn’t even have diapers.  After administering a completely horrible medication designed for high blood pressure, my contractions finally stopped and I was allowed to go home with the understanding that I would return early the next morning.  So home I went.  My body felt like it was made of lead.  This medication was making me retain water to the point I should have popped like a balloon…it was the worst.  And I was extremely lethargic.  Anyway, I digress.  With baby successfully reigned in I had to deal with work.  I couldn’t keep working and dealing with crazy stressful situations and expect to be able to hold this baby in for the full cooking time.  So, I called my boss and started my maternity leave about a month ahead of schedule.  Baby boy arrived, via cesarean section three weeks later.  And despite my complete fears of giving birth to a Thanksgiving turkey (I had gestational diabetes and all I heard for 9 months from my doctors was how much we had to watch babies weight) he was born weighing just 6 pounds.  My tiniest baby and my final contribution to the world’s population.  What a blessing he is!