Peanut's Birth Story--Part 3

And the saga continues....


After lunch we laid your brother down and Daddy ran out to get some things. I laid down for a while and rested some more. At 2 pm I decided that I was going to go for a walk by myself and see if you and I could get things moving. We headed over to the cemetery and I walked as hard as I could. (Which was not very hard compared to most, but okay for me at 41 + weeks!) I didn’t get too far and a contraction hit. I headed to a tree, leaned against it and just relaxed my way through it. As it passed I started walking again. It was fairly warm in the sun so I just stayed in the shaded areas and learned fairly quickly to stay close to the big trees as they were good buddies during contractions. While I was walking I was talking to you my little one. I just kept chatting about whether you were a boy or a girl, my love for you and my desire to meet you as soon as possible. I ended up using the phrase “its time” over and over again. As in, it is time for you and I to meet and it is time for you to dance your way into this world. And the contractions seemed to be coming closer together and all were fairly strong so it seemed that maybe you agreed! I couldn’t help but wonder what the workers thought as they were landscaping and cutting grass and they kept seeing me swaying while leaning against the big trees. I had to be quite a sight!

I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I knew that things seemed to be moving along and I headed home to Daddy. I decided that we should get things together, drop your brother off and head to the birth center. If things slowed down again (which I figured they would with the changes) then we could walk in the Falls or go out to dinner. Either way we’d be closer to where we needed to be and your brother would be taken care of. I wasn’t anxious and really didn’t think things were moving too quickly, but just felt like we should take the next step. When I got home I realized I’d been gone about 40 minutes and had about 8 contractions while at the cemetery. That meant they were about 5 minutes apart which was closer than I had thought. I told Daddy my idea and he decided to finish up a few things while I packed up the cooler. Shortly after we talked I realized that the contractions were still coming fairly strong and told Daddy that we needed to not waste time and get going. Again, I didn’t feel panicked I just felt like we needed to get moving. The timing worked out well since your brother woke up and we headed out the door by 3 pm. We had called Coral to let her know the plan and she said she’d head over the center to get the birth pool ready and we called Debby who was with her grandsons and she said she’d get moving towards the center soon as well. Our final call on the way out the door was to Grandma and Grandpa F's answering machine to let them know we were headed towards the center.

Once we were in the van I realized that I was going to be having contractions while we were driving. I do not know why this hadn’t clicked with me before, but since I didn’t have any with your brother I had not considered what that would be like with you. Turned out I wasn’t too fond of laboring sitting in a seat with my seat belt on as it made it really hard to relax through the contractions. We were joking around talking about the fact that we’d be able to bill for 2 days at the center since we’d be getting there in the evening and you would probably be born in the wee hours of the morning or sometime the next day. And as we were driving your Daddy started watching the clock to see how far apart the contractions were. We quickly discovered that they were getting closer together! When we were almost to the Marquette Interchange I saw that traffic was backed up on every interstate except the direction we were headed and I was so grateful that we could keep driving. The closer we got to your Grandma and Grandpa S's house the harder the contractions were coming. We had polka music playing and your brother was trying to sing along. Thankfully he thought many of my labor noises were just me singing too!

We were only a few miles from S’s house when I told your Daddy that I thought we needed to just go to the center and have them meet us there. I was feeling overwhelmed with the strength and number of contractions and just didn’t know how long I could keep laboring in the van. Since we were going to be driving right past their house we decided to drop your brother off, but Daddy called them and warned them that this would be a fast stop. We pulled up and they were waiting for us. I got him out of his seat while Daddy unloaded everything. Grandpa grabbed things from Daddy while I put your brother down to have a contraction against the van. He got upset because of all the commotion and having been put down, but Grandma picked him up right away. We pulled away from the house to a crying boy with stuff all over the lawn…it was literally a 3 minute drop off.


More tomorrow! Part 4 here.
Heather