Dilated to 4 centimeters and 25% effaced! Holy hell the little shit was trying to put in an early appearance and that would not do! J.D. was as pale as a ghost as the doc gave us the news. She gave us the specifics on where I was to go to the hospital to be admitted and what I was to expect. I was told that I was going to be put on strict bed rest as well as an I.v. of medications to try and slow things down. I went into command mode at that point and told J.D. to call the Captain, get my "Go" bag from my room, and then call my daughter at school to catch a ride to her friends house where she would stay until we figured out what was going on.

The ride to the hospital was tense and nerve-wracking, J.D. held my hand and kept trying to reassure me that everything was going to be okay, and even though I thought back on how I hadn't really wanted to be a mom again at 41, I was attached to the little being growing in me and I wanted him to arrive safe and sound. When we arrived at the hospital, my dignity promptly left. I was issued a hospital gown and told to leave everything else off because they were going to put a probe up in me to measure the babies status in closer proximity. It was at that point J.D. exited stage left and I wished the young Rock Star was around so I could whack him in the nads a few times to even the score. I laid there in that damn bed for hours with my parts in the wind, waiting for the doctor to come and give me some information. My ass was uncomfortable from the hard bed, my back hurt from laying in the proper position for all the monitors to work, and the crap on tv was driving me crazy. Nobody had shown up yet to keep me company and I was getting testy and grumpy. It was dinnertime before the doctor showed up to jam her fingers back up my crotch and once again she gave me a glare that made me feel like I was doing something wrong. " You are at 5 centimeters and 50% effaced and showing that you are having contractions. We have been trying to stop him, but for some reason he is determined to be born. If he keeps getting these runs of decelerations in his heart rate we are going to deliver him tonight, so you better have your team here just in case. A month early? Well that would figure, coming early and doing as he damn well pleased no matter what the consequence.

I got on the phone and called the Captain and J.D.. They had already picked up daughter and were having a quick dinner and making sure Jack was fed and the nursery was ready. I told them to get their butts to the hospital before I sent the SWAT team to drag them in and the next thing I knew all hell was breaking loose as alarms went off and people started moving really damn fast all around me.

Lucky for me the Captain and J.D. drive like cops because they managed to get daughter and get to the hospital in less than the time most people would take to decide what they were going to wear for the day. By the time they arrived, the little cuss had gotten very serious about coming. The doctor was trying to decide if we were delivering normally or if we were doing a c-section, but the one thing we had decided on was that I was getting spayed no matter what, I wasn't going though this again! The baby's heart rate kept dropping dangerously low and it was scaring the hell out of all of us. I don't think I had ever listened as closely to anything as I listened to that monitor, and as the Captain and J.D. and daughter came into the room, they could see the stress was starting to get to me. While I am flexible and able to change plans as the situation dictates, the thought of a c-section scared the hell out of me, but not as much as losing the little critter and I wanted somebody to make a decision and soon.

Everybody was watching the monitor like it was the only link holding us all to the world and every time the beeps slowed down, we all held our breath. I don't think I had ever seem the Captain or J.D. look so pale and daughter held onto my hand like she was afraid I was going to launch off the bed. After the 3rd time the monitor slowed down, the doctor said, "That's it, he's coming out and now. It appears the cord is around his neck and that is what is causing his heart rate to slow, so we cant do this the normal way, we are going to have to go for the c-section. I'm sorry, but its going to have to happen now." She informed us that while J.D. and the Captain could be in the delivery room as long as they stayed out of the way, daughter was going to have to stay in the room and just wait. She wasn't happy, but the guys promised to bring her news and pictures as soon as things were done. Pictures? What the hell? I made all kinds of dire threats about what would happen if any of my parts showed up in the pictures, and they both solemnly promised to behave themselves as the followed me as I was rolled down the hallway to the operating room.

Seeing them dressed in scrubs and the funky hair nets and masks was kinda funny and I demanded that they get pictures of each other for me as I was being given the epidural that was going to numb me up. After I was suitably numbed and then splayed out like a frog about to be dissected, they moved up closer to my head so that they weren't staring at my parts. The doc started asking me if I could feel things, and I had no idea what the hell she was talking about so I guess I was numb enough and she started cutting and tugging away on my guts. I saw the Captain and J.D. both go a little pale and I told them that if they passed out they were going to get a complimentary neutering, so they had better nut up and fast. It turned out that the doc had lifted my entire uterus out and that would be enough to put anyone off their feet a bit if they weren't expecting it I guess. It seemed like no time had passed and we heard a sound that sounded like a kitten that was pissed the hell off and my son had made his grand entrance into the world.

I only got to see a quick glimpse of him as the doc showed me that he was indeed a boy, and that he was a shaggy little cuss already with a full head of dark hair, as she handed him off to the NICU nurses so he could be evaluated due to being a month premature and the urgency of his birth. The guys went with him, leaving me with my guts hanging out on the table as the doctor went about spaying me to prevent any further kids, but not before I saw that both of them had tears in their eyes, they were already wrapped around the little guys fingers and he didn't even have a name yet. I got word of his measurements, and he was a runty little cuss, but so far healthy and breathing on his own and pink and acting like he should, so if he stayed healthy and happy after an overnight in the NICU and ate normally, I might even be able to take him home in a few days.

The Captain was the first to come and see me in my room after all was said and done and he looked like a man that had be whacked in the head a few times and left to stagger around. "He is perfect and I got to hold him and feed him. He is so damn tiny that I was afraid he was going to break, but he grabbed ahold of my finger and I swear he gave me a look!" I had to laugh at him just a little, but I didn't have the heart to tell him that the little guy most likely couldn't see a damn thing other than bright lights and shapes, but he could hear voices so the fact that familiar voices were around him was helpful. Daughter and J.D. were down in the NICU with him and were trying to figure out just what name to stick him with. We had narrowed it down to 2 and once we had a consensus, we were going to finish filling out the paperwork. Daughter had taken my phone with her to the NICU to get some more pictures of him so she could send them out to family easier than waiting to upload them from home. My kin had been harassing me for months to tell them who the daddy was, mainly so they could hunt him up and kill him, but I knew they would be excited to see the pictures of him and once they saw how cute he was, they wouldn't care anymore about who contributed half his dna.

Daughter and J.D. came walking into the room and announced that they had reached an agreement on his name and so it was decided that Spencer was going to be his first name, Thomas his second and as daughter finished typing that into the phone, she hit send and then gasped as she realized that she had sent the picture with the name and the stats on her new brother to everyone in my phones address book, including the young Rock Star.

I told her to "Calm down! Hell! You had wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt about not getting the message the first time around, and if he didn't, well then, this should damn sure clear that up. He has had over 8 months to get in contact with me. he has been back in the states and in fact he has been as close as Seattle, but I haven't heard a peep out of him, so its okay. He lives in a different world than us and as long as we don't go getting in the media eye or trying to demand anything from him, he will leave us alone, so don't worry about it. He's obviously not interested. Now, someone help me up and get me a wheelchair so I can go see my boy."

We ended up only being stuck in the hospital 4 days. He was doing well and growing already gaining precious ounces and peeing on every nurse that dared to try and change his tiny little diaper, he even peed on J.D. and the Captain both and managed to cause them to smear poop all over themselves and him, requiring a change of the entire bassinet and getting them laughed out of the NICU. The Captain insisted on bringing his tank of a truck, and he had the most expensive and battle tested car seat known to man installed in the middle of the back of it. I was surprised he hadn't added extra skid plates to the side panels of his truck and an additional roll bar to the damn thing, because I don't think heads of state were traveling as safe as that baby was going to.

Arriving home, I managed to hobble myself in and to the couch as the guys and daughter brought in the baby and all his assorted gear. It was amazing just how much crap a small baby would acquire in 4 short days of life, and though he spent most of his time sleeping or eating, he had the attention of way more people than I had ever thought he would attract. I came home to find my entire living room stuffed with flowers, stuffed animals and food baskets and all kinds of extra baby stuff from people in the department, daughters friends and even my neighbors. It seems like a baby brought out the need to give stuff in everyone. His room had a monkey theme thanks to daughter, and she had even found the young Rock Stars t-shirt that I had kept, and along with my concert t-shirt and hers, she had had them sewn into a wall hanging that was over the head of his crib. I didn't argue with her too much about it. We weren't talking about the young Rock Star too much, though I know it bothered daughter a bit that there had been no response from him to the picture she had inadvertently sent him. I just chalked it up to circumstances of life, and told her so. I still listened to his music, and hell. when his big movie came out, I would go see it. It was just one of those things and I didn't hate him or bear him any ill will for his choice, but I wasn't going to let it impact me anymore than it already had.

I decided to put him in his bassinette in my room for the first few months so I wouldn't have to hobble to far to get to him when he woke up needing to be fed during the night. I wasn't going to breast feed because I was going back to work as soon as possible and it just wasn't going to be feasible time wise or health wise for either of us, due to the meds I was on for the nasty migraines that had a bad habit of showing up when I was sleep deprived. Formula feeding made life easier for all of us, that is once we found a formula that didn't give him colic that made him scream his head off for hours on end. He of course, needed the most expensive and hard to find stuff known to man and it became a game of, "find the formula" for all of us. But it was good stuff and he rapidly lost the skinny, frog legged look and gained the more normal, and adorable cute baby look that got attention everywhere he went. His hair was always and uncontrollable mess and I had considered putting a bow in it just to keep it sort of tidy, but the guys and daughter just slapped my hands away from him and mussed his hair back up so that it looked as wild as ever. His eyes were a vivid green that made people stop in their tracks and just stare and of course he had his fathers dimples. The Captain commented , "Well Swan, it seems that the only thing he inherited from you is your temperament" as he launched into another howl fest due to the fact he was alone in is bassinette and he wasn't being worshipped at the moment by one of his many fans. J.D. walked over and picked him up and started patting and singing to him, getting him settled and back to sleep so we could all sit down to a hopefully uninterrupted dinner.