Special Delivery at 0230

During yet another night in which I was estranged from my lavendar-vanilla scented bed, I was overhearing two nurses discuss their pregnancies and asking me when I was planning on having a child of my own (not any time soon considering I'm currently lacking a suitable donor for the other 23 chromosomes :P ). I politely excused myself to undertake a frivolous and potentially risky adventure to the 24 hour coffee shop when a slightly crazed man bursts through the doors and screams, "my cousin is in the car having her baby RIGHT NOW!" Sure enough, I see a car outside with a woman whose face is grotesquely distorted with pain and a man looking stricken with panic. The charge nurse sees this and gets into super-nurse mode. He starts barking orders left and right and screams at me to bring a wheelchair. For once I was (slightly) ahead of the game and wheeled one over to the car and opened the door for the woman. Turns out her cousin was right - she was having the baby right now. Right now as in the head was out! The wheelchair was useless. I ran to get a stretcher and some blankets for her. By this time, the paramedics were helping and security was calming down the waiting room. We got the woman on the stretcher - my charge nurse was on the stretcher assessing the situation, the ER doc was barking orders that I didn't hear, the dad was saying something about the water breaking and I was holding on to the side of the stretcher trying to put in a saline lock. We wheeled her into a room just as the the OB-GYN, L&D and neonatal mafia swarmed the room. Within 10 minutes we were admiring a beautiful pink and shrieking baby girl! Some of the patients came out of thier rooms to see the commotion and applauded when they heard the baby crying! Mommy and daddy were crying tears of joy while the cousin was just beaming. The family was quickly taken up to the L&D floor while I was left thinking that nights like this make night shifts worthwhile. The adrenaline rush also kicked coffee's ass in waking me up!