Seven Years Ago...

Seven years ago tonight I was trying to go to sleep. It was the first day in about a month that I hadn't taken a nap in the afternoon (I quit work 1 month before my due date), and I was exhausted. It was also the first day in a month that I went to bed with a messy house (or what I used to call a messy house--I'd kill to have that as my standard now!). But, I just could not settle down, I thought I must have eaten something that didn't agree with me and kept having to spend time in the bathroom. A little before 10 it occurred to me that I may have been in labor...so I started timing the cramps and they were 3-4 minutes apart. But, for some reason (maybe because this is what the doctors hammer in your heads), I stayed at home for one hour before I picked up the phone and called my doctor's office. The contractions were mostly 3-4 minutes apart, although there were some that were 2 minutes apart. At exactly 60 minutes, I picked up the phone. I managed to make that call in between contractions and I sounded calm. Nevertheless, the mid-wife told me to meet her at the hospital (or rather, once the nurses checked me then they would call her if I was really in labor). James and I left and made our way to the hospital which is about an 8 minute drive from our house. I didn't make it through the brief check-in process (although I had already pre-registered), the lady at the front desk seemed to recognize the urgency in my breathing. So, I was wheeled up (while James was trying to find parking), quickly undressed and discovered that I was dilated to an 8! Then things were very hectic and I discovered that there would be no epidural and that my mid-wife had been called and lived only one exit away from the hospital (she later told me that night that "it was a good thing that she lived so close". James arrived. I quickly went through transition, which was really scary to me. Jeannie (my mid-wife) arrived, I was dilated to a 9 1/2, she broke my water and I immediately dilated to a 10. That was somewhere around 1:10 AM, I had Thomas at 1:23 AM. On his due date, no less.

So, I will say one thing for myself, I may not have a body that likes to get pregnant, or be pregnant but my body is fantastic at having fast babies! (I was even faster the 2nd time around).

Until later,

Emily