"Aunt Jackie? Aunt Jackie wake up, it's time!" Jackie's niece, Courtney, says holding the bottom of her stomach.

"Are you sure, this is the third time this week?" Jackie gets out of bed and turns the light on. She struggled to focus and adjust to the light, and then looks at the clock.

"3:40 in the morning, I won't get to work this morning." She says and checks Courtney out. Jackie got all of her instruments to see if this really was it. The three of them, Courtney, her son, Cameron, and herself have been at this all week.

"Two false labors and a possible 3rd is too much for me, lay back let me check." Jackie is a RN at St. Mary's Womens Hospital. She works in OB/GYN, which is lucky for Courtney. Or else the other two episodes would have led them straight to the hospital and back home again... Still pregnant.

"OH oh oh!! Aunt Jackie I feel like pushing! OWW!"

"No don't push do you hear me! Don't push, Courtney." Jackie hurries up and put on a pair of sterile cloves and inserts her hand into her niece.

"Aunt Jackiiiieee!!" Courtney screams.

"Ma, not again." Cameron says coming in to the bedroom.

"Get out!! Ohhhh Ahhh!" She raises up to yell at him.

"Cameron honey, go back and get dressed. We got to go to the hospital. Come on Court, get dressed." She says and hurries to her room and calls the doctor.

"St. Mary's OB/GYN. This is Carol."

"Hi Carol, Jackie. What doctor is on duty now?" Jackie asks while thumbing through drawers for some leggings and a T-Shirt.

"Hey, Dr. Lowe is on but will be leaving in about an half hour, he is filling in for Dr. Xui. Is everything okay?"

"My niece is in labor and is dilated about 6 centimeters, and contractions are 17 minutes apart. So we have some time but not much. Tell him that we are on our way."

"Will do, see you soon." Carol says and hangs up.

In the car, Courtney was crying and Cameron was changing channels on the radio every couple of seconds. There was no traffic, so getting to the hospital was not a problem.

"Ma, can we get something to eat from the café when we get there?"

"I will have to give you some money and you can get something, I will be getting your cousin settled, alright?"

"Okay, then I am going to go lay down in your office. I am not going to school am I?" He asks smiling.

"Yes."

"Man, I am going to fall asleep in class, then the teacher yells at me."

"Cameron, I have seen you go to sleep later than this on a school night. I let you stay up and you say that you will be fine. Now if you are falling to sleep in class, then I will set a bedtime for you and you will abide by it."

"No mom, I didn't say that I was falling to sleep in class, I was saying that the teacher will yell at me IF I fall asleep." He says going back and changing what he said.

"Umph, I wouldn't want that, so you won't fall asleep, now will you?"

"No Ma'am!" He says looking relieved. She shoots him another 'You better not' glance to make sure that he understands and parks the car.

"Wait here I am going to get a wheelchair." Jackie says running into the Emergency Entrance. She came back with the wheelchair and a couple of hospital aids.

"Oh no I think my water just broke, Aunt Jackie." She cries and clutches her stomach.

"It's okay we are here, they are going to get you in a room and prep you for delivery, I am going to get you registered and I'll be right in, okay, I am going to be right there with you, sweetheart." Jackie says to comfort her frantic niece.

"Please don't leave me, I want you to go with me." She says crying hysterically, "Please Auntie!"

"Okay, I'll do it in your room, calm down I don't want you getting too excited, so you just be still and rest for a second." Jackie gave Cameron his money and he went his own way. She didn't worry too much about him because everyone pretty much knows him and he knows his way around. Once they got Courtney into a room, Jackie filled out the necessary papers and got herself ready in Labor and Delivery. Dr. Xui gave Courtney an IV with a mild epidural and she was quiet for the time being.

"Carol, could you do an ultrasound and get the heart monitor on her, she is still at about 6 to 7 centimeters and I want to see how the baby is doing. It's been about an half hour since her last contraction."

"Sure, I will get it now."

"Thanks, I will be right back." Jackie says and heads for the doctor's office.

"Can I come in?"

"Of course, is everything alright?"

"I hope so, I called for an Ultrasound and a the heart monitor to keep track of the babies heart rate."

"Good, you are always a step ahead of me."

"I try." She says heading back out.

"Keep me posted I will be here." The doctor says and continues on with what he was doing. She left his office and went to the bathroom to freshen up some. Jackie realized that she left home with out washing her face, brushing her teeth, and after running her hand over her head, hadn't brushed her hair either. Though the hair wasn't a big issue because she has a low hair cut that she goes to a barber to touch up.

"Who are you talking to at a quarter of 5 in the morning?" She asks Cameron, who had made himself comfortable in her seat and was on the phone 'Rappin' a taste' as he always calls it.

"Mom I was calling the time." He says and hangs up, "You have about one...two... three... three clocks in here with four different times on them." He says getting out of her chair.

"Don't be funny, I thought that you were going to sleep?" She asks "I did, I didn't go to get anything to eat, I just came in here laid down over there and went to sleep." He says standing up stretching and blowing that bad breath in her face.

"Whew!! Boy you stink." She says laughing at her son who seems to be getting taller by the minute. Cameron is in the 9th grade and is starting to become quite a lady's man. There are little girls calling their house well into the late hours on the night. Then, Jackie took in her niece, because her mother left her over a girlfriend's house and never returned to pick her up. She was only 6 and the poor girl cried forever it seemed like. Jackie was the only other family that would take her. It was completely embarrassing, as a member of the family to see her niece go through that.

"How are we doing in here?" Jackie asks while checking the monitor's readings.

"Okay for now, the other nurse that was in here said that my water didn't break, that maybe from the pain I peed on myself." She says a little shy.

"It's okay, at least we are actually going to go through it this time, before we were up here for nothing." Jackie says and smiles at her niece.

"I am scared now though, it seems like I wasn't really prepared, that I am not prepared."

"You will be okay, you have been taking good care of yourself. I trust that you will be just fine."

"I am glad that I have you. I don't know where I would be without you. Probably in some strangers foster home that's where."

"You know I wouldn't have let that happen," Jackie says, "we are family, I wouldn't leave you out there like that." Courtney started to cry softly and wondered to herself if she would be like her mom. If she would someday abandon her child. She rubbed her stomach where it felt tight and then thought again. She thought about Jackie and how she had taken care of her for the last 12 years. She really didn't know where she would be if she hadn't taken her in, but it doesn't even matter now. She was going to be the mother that her mother wouldn't be to her.

"What's wrong? Are you in pain again?" Jackie asked Courtney who had a stream of tears rolling down her eyes.

"Nothings wrong, I'm not in pain or anything. I was just thinking about my mother. I know that I have asked you so many times before why she left me..."

"And I told you..." Jackie started on her story about her sorry sister.

"But, no Aunt Jackie, I don't care anymore. I have let it go. I am not going to worry about anything but being the best mom to my own child. I can't let her get to me. Not like she used too anyway. I don't remember her and that is just how I am going to leave it." She said and closed her eyes to the soothing strokes of her Aunts hand.

"How are we doing in here." Dr. Xui said as he walked in on the two women.

"Everything is reading good, mother vitals are steady, and baby's heart rate is normal. The contractions are starting to coming a little more frequently, at about every 10 minutes or so. Here is the chart that I have been following," Jackie said and stood over by the doctor to talk about Courtney. She played with the remote to change the channels on the TV. She waited and tried to eavesdrop on them, but she couldn't hear them. She wondered what they were talking about for that long. When actually it wasn't that long, it's just that she was anxious.

"Okay sweetie," her aunt said to her, "Dr. Xui is going to feel around to see where the baby is, okay?"

"Yes." Courtney said as she cut the TV off and straightened herself in bed.

"It will only take a minute." The Dr. said as he felt and probed around. He told her everything that was going to happen and that there shouldn't be any problems and the delivery would be easy hopefully. She tried to look hopeful but couldn't do anything about the fear she was feeling.

Before she knew it, she was about to deliver her baby. Her head was spinning, she watched this nurse do this, the doctor do that, Aunt Jackie, run here and there and Courtney wanted to scream. She shut her eyes and tried to stop time. She wanted all of the confusion to stop, to stop the pain, to stop thinking about her mother. She hadn't thought about her this often since she was a child. She often cried herself to sleep, mostly in her aunts arms. She tried and tried not too let her mom's leaving her at such a young age weigh on her in adulthood for a man that didn't want kids and since she almost gave her up anyway, she guesses leaving her wasn't hard. What bothers her now is the way I will treat my son or daughter. When or will she decide that she doesn't feel like being a parent. Could she just leave the baby that she gave life to with Aunt Jackie? As wonderful as she is and that was something to say considering how hard she was on her about her schoolwork and making something of herself. She didn't play that out all hours of the night, didn't play that talking on the phone to boys every minute of the day, shopping all of the time and not saving, simply put she didn't play. Especially when she found out that she was pregnant. She didn't fuss and scream but she could still see the hurt.

Jackie was disappointed and felt that she was too hard on her. Jackie blamed herself because she was the only mother figure in her life and she thought that she had failed her. Jackie knew that it wasn't going to be easy, but it wasn't as hard as she thought it was going to be. Courtney really tried to stay out of the way. She didn't get into trouble, she never missed curfew and she would always clean up behind herself. Jackie was always using Courtney as an example to Cameron 'See how she keeps her room clean?' and 'Do I have to tell Court to put away the video game?' She sometimes thought that Cameron would not like Courtney, and for a while, he didn't. He would sit further away from her, wouldn't stay in the same room with her, and wouldn't want to go anywhere he didn't have to with her. That was her fault for placing Courtney on a pedestal, but she also needed to give her the confidence to make it through her mother leaving. That took years, when she came in to live with them, Cameron was four, and that was about twelve years ago.

"Oh Ooowwww!" Courtney yelled as she was giving her last and final push.

"That's it baby! Yes you did it!" Jackie said as she wiped the sweat off of her forehead and the tears that were rolling down her face.

"Whe... where... " Courtney was trying to speak,

"It's a girl, Courtney you have a little girl." Carol the other nurse said as she cleaned her up and wrapped her for her mother.

"Look at her Court, she has that chocolate complexion like you, and look at those lashes. She is precious."

"Hi." Courtney said to the baby "Aunt Jackie. She is so small, is she alright? I mean is she going to be alright?" The new mom asked nervously.

"Sure she is she is a healthy 8lbs 7oz. That girl is just fine so far. We will run tests to make sure though but don't you worry." Jackie told her niece and kissed her on the forehead.

"Do you have a name for her yet?" another nurse asked.

"No, I will though." Courtney said as she thought about all of the names that had gone through her mind the whole nine months. She knew that she would have to have a name that she could be proud of, so that she would be proud of herself, her family, and proud of her mother. Like she is proud of her Mom.... Jackie