"Cal, wake up," Mark whispered in the dark. "Callie." Mark placed his hand over her belly, 8 ½ months pregnant.

"Hmmm…" she sleepily rolled from her left side to her right to face him.

"What?"

"You were groaning in your sleep. Is everything okay?"

With her eyes still shut, she responded, "Yes. I'm fine. Crap. Now I have to pee." Heaving herself out of the bed, she made her way to the bathroom. Closing the door and flipping the light switch, Callie looked at herself in the mirror. Cradling her bump, she spoke softly, "Not now, baby."

So she'd lied to Mark. For the last hour and a half she'd been sleeping on and off, being woken up by contractions ever 20 minutes or so. She was planning on waking him up, just not until she was sure it was real.

Her leg was wet. "Damn." Callie wondered how she'd completely lost control of her bladder. After using the toilet, she realized the wet trickle was still there. "No, no." She bent over and placed her forehead against the cool steel countertop as the beginnings of another contraction radiated from her back to the front of her belly.

"What are you doing?"

"Huh?"

"Callie, it's been ten minutes since you got out of bed. I heard you pee."

"Hold on," she tried focusing on breathing through the pain as she moved her hips back and forth.

Her black hair shielded her face, but standing behind her, Mark could tell this was more than false labor.

"Cal." He didn't want to come off too strongly and get yelled at by his very delicate fiancée right now. "Do we need to go to the hospital?"

"Not yet. I don't need the vultures picking at my bones for god knows how many hours," she responded, as she stood upright again. "Let's just go back to bed."

"What? How can you go back to bed?" Mark asked excitedly.

Callie grinned at him. He was practically jumping out of his skin with anticipation.

"It's 3:45 a.m. I'm tired. Feel free to stay up. But it won't do any good for either one of us."

She lay down in bed, desperate to go back to sleep, but her heart was racing with fear, nervousness and excitement.

Callie felt Mark's eyes on her from the doorway.

"We're going to be parents," he stated, half in shock. "Us, we're going to have a baby, today."

She propped herself up on her elbows. "I love you."

Mark walked over to his side of the bed and climbed in next to her. "Don't hurt mommy too much," he said to the baby. "She says she doesn't care. She's willing to hurt for her dream, but I know she cries easily," he whispered the last part.

"Hey!" she slapped him playfully. "I can handle some pain."

"When you broke your nose you could barely handle the painkiller," he reminded her.

"That was different. I was having a bad year."

They fell into an easy silence, Mark rubbing circles around the baby.

"Will you call Addison?"

"Why, what's wrong?" He shot up.

"Nothing. Calm down. I promised I'd call her when the baby was coming."

Reaching for his Blackberry, Mark dialed the all too familiar number, forgetting that it was the middle of the night.

"Hello?" she answered groggily.

"Addie, Callie's in labor."

"She's early! Are you at the hospital? How's she doing?"

"We're still at home, let me put her on the phone."

Mark looked to Callie to hand her the phone, but she shook her head, squeezing his free hand instead.

"She's having a contraction now, but so far so good."

"I'll be there in 5 hours."

"What?"

"I'm coming up. You think I'd miss this?"

Callie had relaxed again.

"Addison's coming," he conveyed to her.

"Oh, thank god," she sighed. "I trust her so much more than any other mediocre OB resident in that hospital. And I most definitely do not need Alex Karev pulling this baby out of a very small hole."

"Speaking of the hospital, shall we go?" Mark asked again, wanting to check on her progress.

"No. I don't want to go to the hospital. I just want to stay here with you and me. You know, babies pick up on stressful environments. That hospital is a stressful environment."

"What are you saying? You want to have the baby here? Callie, be rational, we don't have any of the equipment. If something goes wrong…"

"It won't."

"You don't know that."

"We live across the street from the hospital. If something's wrong we'll go. But, please, let's just stay here for now."

Callie started to get up.

"Where are you going?" he cautioned.

"I'm having a baby, Mark, I'm not dying."

She took two steps and would have retracted that comment if she could have formed words. She dropped to her knees against the side of the bed and moaned in pain.

Mark instantly jumped up, ready to do anything to help her. With some pretty good guesswork, he began kneading the base of her spine, slowly, to alleviate some of the pressure.

"Help me up."

"You're getting back in bed."

"No. It's not even natural to do this lying down. It'll be easier on me if I just stand up and move around and let the baby drop on its own. Did you know that in China women squat in rice paddies to give birth?"

"We're not in China, Callie."

She walked to the kitchen to fill up a glass of water. "I'm know that, but we need to consider more than just surgery here. We're surgeons. We think like doctors. But there's nothing wrong. I don't need a doctor."