This is a repeat for all you Moms Life readers. :-)

13 years ago, on Monday, August 29, 1988, I went into labor while I was sitting at my desk attempting to get some end of the month reports done for my commander. I was active duty Army at the time. Anyway, I felt the contractions and decided I'd time them, so I pulled a notebook out of my desk and noted the start and stop times of my contractions. I was having them every 15 minutes for 2 minutes. Big whoop. So I started hurrying to get all my stuff done by the end of the day so if I didn't make it in to work for a while it would all be done. My commander walked past my desk, stopped to see what I was up to, noticed my notebook with the times on it, and completely fell apart. He was a bachelor and was paranoid about working with a pregnant woman. The thought that I was having contractions in the same room with him made him NUTS! He gave me a direct order to go to the hospital. I told him they wouldn't want me there yet and I wanted to get this stuff done. He unplugged my typewriter (remember those?), handed me my hat and my purse and told me to go home. He said even if it turned out I wasn't in labor I was not to come back to work until my maternity leave was over with.

So I left. I went home, cleaned the kitchen, did the little bit of laundry that hadn't been done over the weekend, and went walking for an hour around the block. My husband came home around this time, all in a tizzy because my commander had told him that birth was imminent. LOL My contractions hadn't stopped and had started coming closer together, so I decided that we would go to the hospital and get checked while Katie was at daycare. I was dilated to 3. Sent home. No problem. Hah.

Alrighty, it's now Tuesday, August 30, 1988. The contractions haven't stopped. They are still very painful. And they have been at every 5-6 minutes for over 24 hours. I walk and walk and walk and walk. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't sit, I can't stand. I am a BITCH! LOL And every time I go to the darn hospital, I am only dilated to 3.

The good part about this day is I had already decided to name the baby Sarah if it was a girl, but I had no idea on a middle name. (My boy name was David Allen, after my dad and a grandfather) While I was being miserable and laying on the air conditioning duct watching some silly game show they were introducing a new contestant. Her name was Sarahbeth. Wham! Sarah Beth finally had a middle name! LOL

We decide to have Katie spend the night at a friends home because maybe this will end in having a baby. It could happen! LOL After we drop her off around 9 pm, we decide to make another hospital run since we are closer than we would be at home. Rah. And by this time I cannot handle the car moving while I'm having a contraction, so it's a very long process to get me anywhere. Off we go, put on the stinking gown, get hooked up to all the monitors. Nurse says, "Your contractions are really strong and regular." Duh. Get checked. 3. Get sent home again. I start crying. I just want to be shot. Nothing is worth this.

As I'm walking out the door, one of the midwives notices that I'm crying and stops me. We have a nice long chat. Well....actually I have a nice long vent and she's sypathetic. She tells me to go home and take a nice, long, hot bath. She says that this will either stop my labor so I can finally sleep or it will organize my contractions so they will start doing something. I perk up. I LOVE hot baths! I haven't had one in a couple of months for fear of infection. So this is terrific news! Off we go, back home again. Slow process, what with stopping the car for each contraction.

We got home a little after midnight. My husband went to sleep on the couch so he could actually get some sleep. I headed straight to the bathroom and filled the tub with some seriously hot water. You could see the steam rising off the top! I layed in that tub for about 2 hours, draining and refilling when it cooled. It was the first time in a bunch of days that my back didn't hurt and my contractions stopped and all was well in my world. I got out and went to bed and managed to sleep a bit. About 4 am, I wake up and I'm in a bunch more pain. I decide I'll hit the tub again and then, while I'm still feeling the good after-effects of the bath we'll head to the hospital. I go in the bathroom and start running the tub. I sit down to go to the bathroom and throw up. Ugh. Then the diarrhea starts. This is truly the pits. I'm not feeling so hot. The tub starts to run over the top before I can gather myself together enough to shut off the water. I sit there for a while, dealing with stomach cramps and just feeling generally sick. Then my light bulb starts to burn brighter. I realize that I may not just be straining because of an upset stomach.

Sure enough, I check and there's a little head coming out! Holy Hannah! I reach around behind me and grab a couple of big, fluffy towels and then I scoot forward and seriously push. Sarah came out to her waist and I was holding her and she was just looking around. Then she pulled her hand up to her face and started sucking on her thumb! I had seen that one other time in an ultrasound! She was already hooked on the thumb and I didn't even know if she was a boy or a girl. Another push and she got all wrapped up in a towel.

It was the most incredible moment of my life. It was just Sarah, me and the cat. I was the first to know it was a girl. I got to count her fingers and toes and just sit there with her. And she got to be born in a quiet, calm atmosphere instead of the bright chaos of a delivery room.

I finally got my husbands attention and he was just stunned! He called 911 and then went out to flag them in as we lived in the country on a rural route with no clear addresses. I called my mom and told her all about it and she was just incredulous that I was sitting there in my bathroom, still on the toilet, wearing absolutely nothing and holding my new baby while talking to her!

The paramedics arrived and they were funny! They let me cut the cord and then they took Sarah away and wrapped her in that aluminum space blanket. She loathed that blanket. She started screaming and didn't stop until we got to the hospital and got out of that darn blanket! Finally I could push out the afterbirth. I had been holding that in because I didn't know what I would do with it. But the paramedics had a tupperware-like thing to put it in. Yum.

I took a nice shower and then got dressed and went out to the ambulance to the cheers of my neighbors. LOL When we arrived at the hospital I was checked over and Sarah finally got released from the blanket and got her bath and measurements. 7 lbs 6 oz, 21" long. The same as her sister. We got our own room (a MAJOR LLP in an Army hospital) and I skipped all of the training classes and we went home the next day.

And that is how I gave birth in my bathroom. And I did not gnaw the cord with my teeth. :-)

So I would like to wish my youngest daughter, Sarah Beth, a very happy 13th birthday! Silly girl!

ValueSpeak
A Weekly Column
By Joseph Walker

WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!

Carla was a superstar in junior high last year. But the first week of
high school was tough.

"I feel like such a geek!" my young friend wailed as we chatted at the
grocery store. "Nobody knows who I am! Nobody cares! And I still
can't remember where all my classes are! "Last week we had an assembly
and I couldn't find the gym," she continued. "I finally asked some guy
where it was and he laughed and told me to turn around. It was right
behind me! I was, like, TOTALLY humiliated!"

I laughed. I know, I probably shouldn't have done that under the
circumstances. But I couldn't help it. Her frustration was striking
too many familiar chords that tickled fond ­ and not-so-fond ­
memories. Like the time those seniors on the basketball team convinced
me that the coach really admired players who had the spunk to talk back
to him during practice. Or the time those older girls breathlessly
advised me to ask out the school's reigning beauty queen because she had
a secret crush on me but was too embarrassed to say anything about it.

It turned out to be such an incredible secret even SHE didn't know about
it.

Talk about rejection. Talk about humiliation.

Talk about life.

It's amazing how often the sun comes up the morning after we are
absolutely sure our world is going to come crashing to an end. Hurts
and frustrations come and go, but somehow we survive. Sometimes we even
benefit from the lessons learned through pain and embarrassment. None
of which makes the suffering less insufferable. But it may help Carla
and other newcomers to life's ups and downs if we point out a few
realities they can expect to confront on the bumpy road to maturity.
For example:

1. Bad things happen. They just do. Nobody's going to make it out of
here without first experiencing adversity. Expect it. Then when it
comes, deal with it ­ and move on. Good and bad is life's ultimate tag
team. You can't really have one without the other ­ eventually.

2. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That's a
law of physics ­ and of life. There are consequences, both good and
bad, for every choice we make. Our ability to anticipate those
consequences will have a lot to do with our happiness ­ now and forever.

3. There's more to life than fun. Believe it or not, life isn't really
a game ­ no matter what Milton Bradley says. So it's OK if every moment
of your life isn't exciting. As far as I know, no one has every
actually died of boredom.

4. Working works when wishy-washy wishing won't. I don't remember
where I read that, but it's true. There is no shortcut to success.
It's a simple, time-worn formula consisting of hard work, talent, work,
faith, work, discipline ­ and more work.

5. People are more important than things. While it's great to have
nice stuff, none of that means much if its been acquired at the expense
of the important people in your life. Broken things can always be
replaced; with broken relationships, the damage can last a lifetime.

But then, you already knew that, didn't you? That's because you've
probably experienced a good share of life's realities first-hand. But
to Carla and her generation, a lot of these concepts are revelations.
Which means we still have a chance to give them the benefit of our
experience. Otherwise, they'll end up doing some of the same dumb
things we did, and social progress will have to wait for another
generation to live and learn.

And that may be the harshest reality of all.

For my friend, Colleen. A primer in weights and measures. LOL

1 cup = 8 ounces
1 pint = 2 cups = 16 ounces
1 quart = 2 pints = 4 cups = 32 ounces
1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups = 128 ounces

And, according to Kath, you need to drink at least 64 ounces of water a day. Add one cup of water (8 ounces) for each 25 pounds that you need to loose.

Have a wonderful, water-filled day!