Nicholas & Mommy waiting for Joshua to come back from the nursery	Nicholas, Mommy and Baby Joshua	Nicholas, Mommy and Baby Joshua from above

The Story:

Wednesday October 9^th 2002 - This was the scheduled day that Jennifer would be induced.  Having know for months the gender of the soon-to-be addition to our family, this day was often referred to as "Joshua Day".

For some crazy reason, when you are being induced they want you to be at the hospital bright and early, like 7:00am.  In my opinion, they should be nice to you and let you sleep in one last time since we all know this will be the last time, for a long time.  But since I am not a Doctor, we arrived at the hospital at 7:00am as requested.

Upon arrival we were told by the nursing staff that today was an unusually busy day and that all nine of  the birthing rooms were in use.  So they set us up in a staging room.  There were several staging rooms and most if not all were full with other families in various stages of "Just about to deliver".

Once Jennifer was changed, the nurse took all her information, connected the monitor, gave her an IV with some antibiotics and an examination.  She was dilated 2cm.  This is the same 2cm she was dilated a week earlier.  Now we wait.

Because of the large number of women in active labor they decided to delay inducing Jennifer until it looked like a birthing room would be available.  At approximately 10:00am the nurse connected the Pitocin drip.  Back to waiting.  While watching The Mummy Returns, her doctor decided it was time to help the process along, so at about noon be broke her water.  A quick exam and she is at 3cm.  Back to the movie.  The movie ended around 12:15pm, the next movie did not look good, so we joked that it would be a good time to have the baby, since at 2:20pm Dances with Wolves was going to be on and that would be an OK movie to watch.

Around 12:30 we were moved into a birthing room.   The process is starting but still going slow.  At 1:20pm Jennifer's doctor stops in and after checking her decides, since she is only at 4cm (yeah one more only 6 more to go!!)  he will return to his office, if anything was to happen, he could be back in 5-10 minutes.

Jennifer is excited, it's 1:30pm and her soap opera's on.  Don't ask me which on it is, I'm a guy, they're all the same to me.  I am waiting until 2:20 for Dances with Wolves.  We make a small joke that she is running out of time and at this rate, she was going to miss Oprah at 4:00.

At 1:35pm all things changed.  Suddenly the minor but growing contractions changed to MAJOR contractions.  This was it Show time!!  With a couple of these major contractions, Jennifer decides it's time for some medication to take the edge off but before that can happen the nurse has to check her.  Blam'o, suddenly she is 8-9cm dilated and the head is in position.  No time for drugs, time to push.  With only 20 or so minutes of hard labor, Joshua Ryan Kam is born officially at 1:54pm.  Mother, baby and father are all fine.  The doctor returned at 2:00.  Again he missed the birth.  We joke with him, maybe next time.  Dad holds Joshua while the staff tend to Mommy.  At 2:20 Joshua and Daddy start watching Dances with Wolves.

Much like her prediction with Nicholas, Jennifer said she would have this baby by 2:00pm.  She's good!!

Revised: January 13, 2006.

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