Again, this isn't the mostly timely of posts, but I realized that while many of you know that Collin has arrived (3 and 1/2 weeks early, by the way), most of you don't know HOW that came to be. So, on what was supposed to be his birthday (St. Patrick's Day, not February 25), I will take the opportunity to tell you all about how Collin got here. It's a long story, so I will tell it in pieces...today-Part 1:I had gone to the doctor the day before Collin's birthday (February 24) and my doctor asked if I wanted to be checked to see how dilated I was. I said sure, knowing that how dilated I was meant NOTHING. After all, with Ethan, I walked around dilated to 3 and 1/2 cm for about 3 weeks before my water broke and I finally had him. I wasn't going to hold out much hope. That being said, I also thought that with how many contractions I'd been having and how much pressure I was feeling, that I would be dilated to at least a 1 or 2. Nope. Dr. Teri checked me and said, "No, you're tight as a drum. It'll be at least another 2 weeks." Okay, no worries. I scheduled my next 3 weekly visits and came home to teach my 1 piano lesson.
After my lesson, Mark had happened to get off of work at a fairly decent time and I was not feeling up to cooking. We went up to Madigan's for pizza (mmmm....my favorite) and then came home to watch TV and go to bed.
Everything was great until about 12:30am (which, ironically enough, is when my water broke with Ethan). I started having pretty intense contractions. I tried sleeping through them, which would work for a while, but then I'd have another and another and another. As I got thinking about it, I noticed they were fairly close together, so I got up out of bed and got my cell phone (which has a stopwatch on it) to start timing contractions.
I laid in bed with my fingers on the phone. Any time I started feeling pain, I clicked the button to start again. As I looked, my worst fears were realized-my contractions were about 5 minutes apart. I was in labor. I knew I was, and yet I laid there for another 2-3 hours. After all, I didn't want a February baby. February has never been a great month for my family-surgeries, health scares, drama, etc.-and this year was no exception. Besides, I had my maternity leave all planned out for March and knew that if the baby came too early, I wouldn't have enough sick time to get paid. I just kept praying, "Please God, make the pain stop." No such luck.
By 3:30, I called my mom to let her know what was going on. She tried to calm me down, but also told me that it could be false labor-I mean, she was in labor with me for 4 or 5 days, and in the hospital in labor for 36 hours...maybe that's what was going on with me. She suggested I try some deep breathing and rather than laying in bed, try laying in the recliner. I tried both. I laid in the recliner and anytime I had a contraction, I curled my toes and attempted to breathe through the pain. I did that for another hour or two. While I was doing this, I also realized that our suitcases weren't packed for the hospital, so as my contractions would subside, I would go and pack.
At around 5:30-6am, I called my mom again and asked her if she could come up and watch Ethan, should we decide to go in to the Birth Center. She told me she would be up shortly. While I was waiting, I called the school secretary, still determined I was not having the baby that day. "Hi Ann! It's Jess. Just wanted to let you know that I'm having contractions right now...they're about 5 minutes apart, but I'm still planning on coming in today." Her response: (chuckle) "Okay, good luck with that!" I also called the Birth Center who eased my feelings by telling me that while it sounded like I was in labor, I should come in and being that it was still almost a month before my due date, they would give me something to stop the labor and contractions. I finally woke Mark up and when Mom got to our house, by which time my contractions were 4 minutes apart, we headed to Buffalo.
Tomorrow...the birth! :)
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