Last week I left you with a cliffhanger … my youngest sister, in labor with her first baby, had just chucked a Dammit Doll at the flat screen. Here’s the drama-infused conclusion, for your reading pleasure.

After the doll “incident,” we headed to the hospital in downtown Chicago. She was triaged and scheduled for admittance. An hour later, still waiting for her to be moved to the labor/delivery floor, my mom and I received word that the doctors had changed shifts and the new one had overruled the admittance. Prego was headed back home. Of course Doctor No. 2 soon acquired a very unflattering nickname which I cannot repeat here, but which did make us all feel a tad bit better.

After a good cry and a few choice cuss words, Prego decided she was starving, so we drove to the nearest diner that served lunch at 10 a.m. Sometimes fries and a milkshake are the only answers. Back home, we all tried to rest, but because I was relegated to the couch in the sunny living room, sleep eluded me. I bounced back and forth between episodes of “Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team” and “Jerry Maguire.” Heaven!

At one, another sister arrived, and together we forced Prego out of the house. We spent the afternoon hoofing around her neighborhood, hitting antique shops, toy stores and a very glamorous grocery store with two martini bars and a jazz quartet right there in produce. I put our mileage at four. By dinner, Prego wasn’t smiling anymore, not even upon hearing a hilarious tale involving a hung-over mother, two escaped parakeets and a chandelier.

The tears re-appeared at nine, as pain and fatigue joined forces to smite Prego’s attitude. She felt certain she should return to the hospital but was terrified they would send her home again. My other sister, a litigator by day, made it quite clear that as long as she was around, there’d be no such nonsense. Not on her watch! Are we clear? ARE WE CLEAR!?

So at midnight, with Prego at six centimeters and an epidural SWAT team on standby, we excitedly awaited the birth. By 2:30 a.m. however, there’d been no progress, and No. 2 banned us from the room. Party over. The daddy-to-be texted a short while later that the baby was in distress, and that Doctor No. 2, whose nickname we’d quietly repealed, had ordered an emergency C-section.

No worries! This baby story has a happy ending. My sister and new nephew are doing great, and the Dammit Doll is resting easy knowing no further abuse will come to her. At least not until this parenting gig gets real, that is! Peace out.