My daughter came into the world with a blast of fireworks. Of course, the fact that it was the Fourth of July may have had something to do with it. Still, I expected all the hoopla that day to be in the sky, not in the delivery room. But she decided it would be cool to share her birthday with the country, and who was I to disagree? However, when my labor pains kicked in at the local July Fourth fair and I told my husband we were going to have a Yankee Doodle baby, he wasn't so sure.

"Let's wait and see what happens," said the one of us who wasn't doubled over with contractions.

"No, we have to go to the hospital NOW," I assured him.

"Don't you remember that the first one took 36 hours?" he reminded me. No, really? Gee, I had almost forgotten about those two glorious days in a Demerol haze that were more painful than watching an entire audition season of "American Idol."

"The second one can be different," I said through gritted teeth. I finally convinced him that it wouldn't be hygienic to have our baby on the ground next to the pony rides, and we set off for the hospital.

We arrived at the nearby hospital within a matter of minutes and pulled up directly to the front door, where a lovely attendant met our car with a wheelchair and offered me a cappuccino on the way up to the delivery room.

"How long was your first one?" my doctor asked us after examining me.

"Thirty-six hours," said the one of us who wasn't sipping cappuccino between contractions.

"Well, I guess we have some time then," said my doctor. "I've been here all night. I'm going to run home, get some lunch and change. By the time I get back, you should be ready."

It was a good plan in theory. But no sooner had the doctor left than my daughter decided she wanted out... NOW!

This is when I discovered the downside of having a baby on a holiday. The hospital was operating on a skeleton staff, so there was only one anesthesiologist, and suddenly, eight women having babies who demanded anesthesia.

If there were any fireworks outside, we couldn't hear them.

"Where's the doctor?" yelled my husband.

"Where's your insurance card?" asked the nurse.

"Where are my drugs?" I howled.

It was just us, the nurse and a panicked-looking intern in the room. I glared at my husband. "The baby's coming!" I told him definitively.

He put on his catcher's mitt.

The anesthesiologist finally arrived just as we heard the sound of heavy footsteps running in the hall. My husband looked out the door to see our doctor galloping toward us in flip-flops, a Hawaiian print shirt and straw hat. "Sorry," yelled the doctor, pulling on latex gloves while he ran. "I thought I had time for a barbecue."

He ran into our room, held out his hands, and seconds later, he caught my daughter as she entered the world.

"It's a girl," announced the doctor. "Born on the Fourth of July!"

"Oh, wow!" exclaimed my husband. He turned to me. "How do you feel, honey?"

"Numb," I said.

"Numb?" he asked.

"Yeah. My epidural just kicked in."

Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, "Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble," available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.

Photo credit: Tim Bish at Unsplash