It was mid-morning, and the call was to a house not far from the fire station. It was so close we could have walked down the street and then followed the dirt road back to the house. The call was for a "childbirth", which in reality meant we could find anything from a newborn to a mother just going into labor....

This call was of the latter sort, only we couldn't get that information immediately: there was a very pregnant young lady sitting calmly on the couch, but there were also an uncountable number of family members flying in and out and all about the room shouting and crying and just generally raising a ruckus. I tried talking to the young lady and my partner tried to get information from one of family members, but we really couldn't hear anything above the shouts of, "She's having a baby!" and, "Someone has to do something!"

I finally turned toward my partner Lee and said, "Hey, man, I can't even hear her answers with all this noise. Maybe you can send them all outside?" He paused for a moment and I turned back to my patient. Suddenly the room was literally hammered into silence as his best parade ground voice cut through all the noise:

Everyone stop! This woman is about to have a baby and we need your help now! You! (indicating the occupants of the west side of the room) You all tear sheets! ...and you! (indicating the occupants of the east side of the room and those peeking out from the kitchen) You boil water. Now! Get to it people!

Blessed silence reigned in the living room, but in the distance you could hear much scrambling and the clatter of pots and pans. I was able to talk with the young lady and discover that this was her first baby and her contractions had started a few hours earlier. They'd now progressed to where they were about twenty minutes apart. There was plenty of time to get her to the hospital and into some quieter surroundings...

The transport ambulance arrived and we loaded her onto the gurney. One of the crew asked where everyone was and what that ripping sound was he kept hearing every few seconds... We just went "Shhh..." and said we'd tell him later. I asked the mom-to-be if she wanted any of the family to accompany her; she just shook her head and said, "Not until they calm down" as we quietly slipped out the door...

We headed off to the hospital and almost-mom and I talked a bit about how she was doing and what to expect at the hospital. We also spent a moment or two on her hyperkinetic family. We were just backing in to the hospital when she started to giggle. ...and giggle. ...and giggle. I was wondering if she was maybe having a stress reaction when she told me what she was giggling about. ...and that started me laughing. It was at that point that my partner and the driver/attendant opened the back door to find both of us in stitches...

I motioned to her and told her it was hers to tell. She looked at them and said, "My baby and I are going to spend the night in a nice freshly made hospital bed and I just can't help but wonder what my family is going to sleep on! There can't be a whole sheet left in the house!" as she dissolved into giggles once again.

I asked Lee where the heck those lines came from; he just shrugged and said, "I saw it in a movie once. I didn't expect it to actually work..."