Nathan was born.

“Oh my God! There's so much blood.” My mother gasped as she entered my bedroom. My husband's scream, that early of the morning, had woken her and from down the hallway she came running. I looked up at her, standing in my doorway and saw her eyes wide with fear. She looked from my white bed sheets, now soaked with blood, to me and I knew my mama couldn't tell me everything was going to be okay. I knew right then, from seeing her speechless and shocked, that this was not normal, but I still stood frozen unable to move.

It hadn't even been five minutes since I noticed the bed beneath me was soaked, along with my underwear. I rolled out of my bed, hoping I wouldn't wake my husband. I knew if he woke up and found out I had wet the bed, he would never let me live it down. I tip toed to the bathroom, careful of the squeak in the door. Leaving the bathroom light off, I started to clean myself up, when the screams began.

“Christina!” My husband yelled out for me. I had been discovered. I prepared myself for the humiliation as I crossed the bathroom's threshold back into our master bedroom.

He was standing by my side of the bed. The light that hung from our ceiling had been turned on. As soon as he saw me, he rushed to my side. His tan face was pale. His hands, reaching out to me, were shaking. I was confused.

“I'm so sorry that I wet the bed.” I tried to explain. “I am nine months pregnant, ya know! It's to be expected.” I thought he would be laughing at me, by now. Possibly, even on the phone with our mutual friends, telling them all about my lack of bladder control. But instead he looked frightened and sympathetic.

He stepped away from me and began dressing himself in the clothing he had left on the floor, at the foot of our bed. “Get your shoes on. We have to go.” He yelled.

Still confused, I glanced at our bed. And that's when I saw it. That's when I saw the bloodstained sheets, where I had just, minutes ago, been sleeping. There was so much of it. My first thought was that someone had been stabbed to death. Someone... it must have been me. I placed my hands on my round, pregnant belly, searching for a wound.

“Christina,” My husband called me, again. “We've got to go to the hospital. Come on.” He was at my side again trying to get me to follow him.

I remembered my wet underwear. I couldn't leave the house with wet underwear! I pulled away from my husband and sat on the corner of my bed. At that point in my pregnancy putting on and taking off clothing required sitting down. I started to pull my underwear off, noticing that they were not soaked with urine, but with blood.

This was my fourth pregnancy. I had three other children, who were sound asleep in their beds. Chase, our oldest, was five years old. Jaime, our only girl, was three years old, weeks away from her fourth birthday. And Lukas was just a few months older than one. I had been in labor three times before. I knew what to expect. I knew what signs to look for. I knew when it was time to go to the hospital.

“We have to go!” My husband continued his pleas.

I looked up at him shaking my head. “No, it's not time. I'm not having contractions.”

And that's when my mom joined us in my room. She had flown up from Florida to stay with me throughout my pregnancy. We were living on an army base in Kentucky and my husband was deployed to Afghanistan. He had just come home four days prior for his R&R, a two week vacation soldiers get when on a year long deployment. She helped with the kids during my appointments and helped with things around the house.

I could see on her face that she was searching for a reason or a solution to our problem. “You need to go to the hospital,” was the best she could come up with.

My husband threatened to call 911 if I didn't get up and get in the truck. I hated the thought of riding in an ambulance, so I stood up, slid into my flip flops and followed him outside our house. He helped me up into his truck and then joined me on the driver side.

Typically, the ride to our hospital was eighteen minutes long. I had timed it regularly throughout by pregnancy. I wanted to make sure that I made it in time for an epidural, but I didn't want to come too soon that I'd get sent home. We made it that morning in fifteen minutes, though. I watched the sun rise on our way there. The sky went from black, lit by the street lights to a light hazy blue in those fifteen minutes.

Once in the hospital, my husband became agitated. They wouldn't send us up to labor or delivery or let anyone check me out, until we registered. Somehow they had lost my pre registration paperwork. My husband argued with the lady at the registration window.

And when we got to our room, he argued with the nurses. No one seemed to be moving fast enough to please my husband. We sat in the hospital room for forty five minutes before a nurse came to check on me. She apologized, saying they were very busy, handed me a hospital gown and asked me to undress. She stepped behind a curtain, while I did what she asked. She checked my cervix for dilation and confirmed that I was in fact in labor.

“But I'm not having contractions. And what about the blood?” I asked her.

She assured me that I would feel the contractions, that I more then likely had a high tolerance for pain. I told her I still wanted an epidural. She promised to page the anesthesiologist. But as for the blood, she said we would have to ask the doctor when he came in.

Thirty minutes later our nurse returned to ask if I was feeling any contractions, yet. I told her no. She walked over to the machine that read my contractions and the baby's heart rate. She confirmed that I was not having strong contractions, so she decided to check my cervix again.

This time I was 8cms dilated. She said it was time to get the doctor. The anesthesiologist was already there. Although, I was not feeling any contractions, I let her do the epidural, just in case.

“I feel pressure.” I said to my nurse, as she held my shoulders still for my epidural.

She nodded. After the epidural was in place, she checked me again and I was 10cms, ready to push. She called for the doctor.

A man I had never met before entered my hospital room. He was decked out in Pittsburgh Steelers gear from a football jersey, baseball cap, and a lanyard hanging from his neck with his medical ID card attached to it. The night before the Pittsburgh Steelers had played the Green Bay Packers in the superbowl. Since the Packers had won, I assumed he was still on call from night shift.

Three pushes and ten minutes later, my baby boy was born. The doctor placed him on my stomach, while my husband cut the umbilical cord. He had so much hair. All I could see was his dark, bushy hair, before the nurse picked him up and carried him to the scale.

Seven pounds twelve ounces flashed in red on the scale. I watched as the nurses cleaned up my baby, stamped his foot on a piece of paper, and checked his height. The doctor finished doing his thing and then my son was handed to me.

People always say you fall in love instantly with your children and I already knew this from my older kids. Call it a mother's intuition, but I knew from that moment that my son was special. I seen my future in his perfectly round face. And I just knew he would change the world, starting with me.