On Friday, June 21, we had a terrible awful makemystomachchurn kind of storm. The rain fell at our house horizontally, that's how windy it was. It sounded like a freight train coming at our house. It was the kind of storm that had me sitting in our basement crying... well, until the rain started pouring into our house through the windows. Then I got off my 38 week pregnant buttooski and held towels up the windows to help save our new carpet!
Anyhow, after the storm finally quit, our power was out. And it stayed out for hours. (Side note: Let's be real --- I learned very quickly how little food we have in our house regularly that can be cooked without power! So, we ventured out to the side of town with power (apparently there's two companies in our little town making things run!) and got some sandwich makings for supper.)
After we put Lydia to bed that night, Tyler and I sat in our basement and played "The Game of Life" in the dark. We NEVER get to play board games, even though we have a bazillion of them and I love playing them! Anyhow, as we were sitting and playing, I kept telling Tyler when I would have contractions. I had been having them every so often for a few days, but nothing regular. I had been to the doctor a week and a few days before and was dilated to 3 cm and effaced 50%. When the doctor told me I was that far dilated, I couldn't believe it and I didn't know what to do with that information. When Lydia was born, I was never dilated on my own at all and had to be induced 5 days after my due date. Tyler finally said to me "I think we need to start keeping track of these contractions. That's the 3rd contraction you've told me about in half an hour." At about 10:30, I called the hospital to talk to an OB nurse to decide what to do and she said to wait a while longer, but to definitely be keeping track. However.... we live 45 miles away from the hospital we deliver at. We decided to set a time that we would make a decision to 'stay or go' by (By the way: the "should we stay or should we go" decision was one that gave me much grief in the days/weeks leading up to Henry's birth, as we never had to make those decisions with Lydia). When that time, which was midnight came, we decided to pack our stuff up and head to the hospital town to have things checked out. So we packed up our stuff. In the dark. And let me tell you, when it's dark, it's dark. And it's really hard to pack stuff (even though my hospital bag was packed) when it's dark.
So about 1:15, we pulled out of our garage to head to the hospital. Tyler looked over at the lights on in our neighbor's house and said "What the heck?! They have power?! They don't have a generator!" When Tyler got out of the van to go pull the string to put the garage door down (because that's another thing that doesn't work without electricity... we could write a book about it!), he tripped the fancy schmancy laser beam thingy that makes the door not shut on little children or dogs, and it turned the overhead light of our garage door on. Yep. The power came on. RIGHT as we pulled out of our garage. AFTER we had packed in the dark. Whatev.
We continued on our way to the hospital. It was a pretty quiet ride. The storm had been very stressful and we were both tired, but excited!
After we dropped Lydia off with Tyler's parents, we went to the hospital and they hooked up the monitor to record my progress and contractions and all that jazz. Of COURSE the second I laid down, the contractions slowed down (and felt to me like they stopped, but the machine was registering some.. thank goodness... or I'd feel like a total ninny who thoughtshewasinlaborbutwasn't!). But... I wasn't in labor labor, just the pretend kind that freaks a prego out and causes her to make her husband pack in the dark.....
So we got sent home at about 3:00 a.m. But heck if I was going to drive the 45 miles home in the middle of the night. And I certainly didn't want to get home and then have to turn right back around (because of course, I knew the second I got out of the car at home, my water would break.... Murphy's Law anyone??). So I vowed right then and there that I wasn't leaving hospital town until I had a baby to take with me.
Saturday, June 22, I hung out. I walked around Target. I walked around Walmart. I visited all the people I had to visit in hospital town (which is the town Tyler and I grew up in, so we have peeps, of course!). I walked 17.2 miles with my bestie (okay, okay... it really was only like 4 blocks... but it FELT like a marathon walk!). By Sunday, I was bored. I told Tyler that I couldn't walk around Target one more time -- I know, right?! GirlwhocouldLIVEattarget can't stand one.more.time. going there. (It was a moment I'm not proud of, nor will I ever admit again). So we decided to go home, but my mom asked us to stay for supper.
I packed our stuff up to get ready to go home. I dropped Lydie off at my parents' house before supper so that Tyler and I could run to Walmart quick before we ate. After we went to Walmart, we decided to drive around the golf course to see the tree damage from the storm. In the course of driving around the course (there's the English language at its finest confusion!), I had contractions start up again. They went from being 8ish minutes apart to about 3 minutes apart (p.s. -- anyone pregnant out there? There's an app for that. What a genius, yet useless app! We used an app called "Contraction Keeper" that was a huge help in tracking contractions... what the heck did people do to track before technology?!) On our drive to my mom and dad's I asked Tyler to drop me off and go get our suitcase from his mom and dad's house to take me back to the hospital.
After we ate supper, we went back up to the OB floor (yes, I quickly became that mom that goes to the hospital with false labor 72.9 times before actually delivering). This time, they kept me 4 hours, until 10:00 Sunday night before sending me home. My doctor wasn't on call that weekend, but her partner was the on-call doctor. She came in to check another one of her patients and stopped in to see me. We decided that I wasn't active enough in my labor to stay, but that I should go to the clinic Monday morning to see my regular doc (who would be back in commission as of 7:00 a.m. Monday morning) and decide what to do. She couldn't break my water (on purpose), because I was only 38 weeks, 6 days. Those things can't be done until 39 weeks.
Monday, June 24, 2013, I went to the doctor's office at 8:30. I told Tyler while we were walking in that today had to be the day. I couldn't take the false labor game anymore. If my doctor told me today wasn't the day, I was probably going to cry (hormones, what?!). When I got into my appointment, she said I had options to strip membranes (nothankyou), just wait (doublenothankyou), or be induced (thankyouverymuch!). She called over to the hospital, which is attached to the clinic I go to and they didn't have anyone there delivering, so I got to go over and be induced.
We grabbed our bags out of the car, walked over to the hospital, and called Lydie. When I told her "Brother's going to be born today," she was SO excited! Anyhow, we went up to the OB floor, got checked in, and got started on the induction process. I was giving the first part of the induction at 10:15ish. At 12:09 (which is funny, because that's the time Lydia was born!), my doctor broke my water. At 5:30 I started pushing. At 5:43, we had a baby!
Henry Andrew (my grandma's maiden name was Andrews) weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.
We love you, Henry!
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