One of the funniest memories I have of Peg was the night Nikki was born.Although Nikki wasn’t due until the 24th of October, Jeff decided that I needed to start staying at Peg’s when he worked nights.I think in her mind it was going to be a piece of cake – if I went into labor, Terri was going to drive me to the hospital.Jeff had to work the night of October 10th and the plan was in place for me to stay with Peg.Sonny was gone (I am assuming to the camp), Terri was going out and wasn’t coming home.Peg was a little nervous that neither one of them were there, and kept telling me that she wished Terri would have just stayed home.I assured her that I wasn’t going into labor, I wasn’t due for almost two weeks and we would be fine, so off to bed we went. As fate would have it, I went into labor, and truthfully, I was stressing a little at this point that Terri wasn’t there, because I knew that Peg was about to freak out.Thinking it was false labor, I called my sister around 1:30 am and she convinced me that I needed to wake up Peg.Around 2:15 am I finally got the nerve up and went into her room, and ever so lightly shook her and said “Peg, I think you need to wake up.” She jumped out of the bed and said “I knew you were going to go into labor and Terri wasn’t going to be here.” Still unsure if it was labor, we sat on Terri’s bed talking about what we were going to do and whether we should go to the hospital. It wasn’t long, my water broke and the labor pains started coming fast and furious. I looked at her and said “We have to go NOW.” We both started running around, me getting dressed to leave and her rummaging around trying to find Jeff’s number at work so she could call him – I kept telling her to get dressed that she could call him from the hospital but I think she was so nervous, she didn't know what to do. I’m not really sure why, but for some reason the decision was made that we were taking my car, which was a standard, and she didn’t know how to drive it.I told her to drive and I would do the shifting.Both of us stressed out, we jumped in my car and headed off to the hospital – Peg driving and me shifting and telling her when to push in the clutch and when to let it out, which was hysterical, because every time she would go to take off, she would pop the clutch and the car would kill. By this time, I was cussing Terri for not being home.Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we make it to Florida Blvd.It was a straight shot from Florida Blvd to Airline Hwy where we had to turn off to go to Woman’s Hospital – she was wanting to flag down a police officer to take me to the hospital and I was yelling for her to run the red lights and go as fast as she could. Just as she ran the last red light before our turn off onto Airline Hwy, we heard the sirens and Peg, the little lawbreaker, was being pulled over.I kept yelling at her to just drive and not to stop, and she was yelling that she needed to stop so that the police officer could take me to the hospital. She completely ignored me and pulled over and the minute she stopped the car, she jumped out and yelled “WE’RE HAVING A BABY!!!!!” She was so upset when the officer told her to follow him that he would escort us, because in her mind, she was sure he would put me in his car and take me himself and relieve her from having to drive the car and from having to deal with me. Needless to say, after popping the clutch a couple of more times, we managed to make it to the hospital - me, Peg, and the car, all in one piece.I can still remember her patting me every time I had a labor pain, assuring me that everything was going to be okay, that she loved me and that we were both going to get Terri GOOD for not staying home to drive us to the hospital.
