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Saturday, May 11, 2013

One Year Ago Today


One year ago today some unexpected events occurred. I basically almost had a baby.

I blogged about Baby Parker’s birth story but in the wake of new motherhood I didn’t blog about the details leading up to his birth.

Every mommy carries a unique birth story. For some it’s a normal labor and delivery and two days later they are home, for others it’s a story of the journey to get pregnant, or maybe a story of adoption, surrogacy, or in vitro. For us the story starts unexpectedly the day before Parker was born. (And it doesn’t end until two weeks after his birth but we’ll save that part for another day.)

On May 11, 2012 unexpected events were set in motion and our little baby boy was going to be born five and a half weeks early.

May 11 was a Friday. I had a few Braxton Hicks contractions that day. Nothing major. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Until… they didn’t go away. Between three and five o’clock that afternoon I noticed they started coming on a bit stronger and a bit more regular.

Honey and I had a date night planned that evening. We were soaking up our last few weeks of “just us”. Exactly one week earlier, Honey had returned from a month long work trip. He returned the weekend we had company in town (for a baby shower) so we were overdue for a weekend date night!

Honey came home from work early and took a nap. When he woke up and realized that I didn’t wake him to get ready for our date, he was immediately alarmed. (Allowing him to sleep and not get ready for our date? Not like me!)

He came to find me. In the kitchen. Busying myself, trying to ignore these contractions that wouldn’t go away.

I was a little nervous. I was afraid that this wasn’t exactly normal.

I had already done the drink-a-glass-of-cold-water-and-lie-down trick the nurse had told me a while back. But the contractions were still there. Not strong by any means. Just annoying enough to get the worry train moving along down the tracks.

Could this be labor? But it’s too early! Why all the contractions? Is something wrong?

Honey and I sat on the couch and started timing and recording the contractions. They were consistently consistent. We called the on-call doctor. She told us to go to the ER to get checked out.

We went ahead and quickly packed bags. Since we were still just under six weeks from Parker’s due date, hospital bags? Not packed. Car seat? Not purchased. Baby Showers? One down, one to go. In other words, we were not ready!

One ER admission, a few dilation checks, three shots of terbutaline, and one big pancake midnight meal later the contractions had stopped and we were on our way home.

The doctor informed us that true labor cannot be stopped. If this was real labor then they had slowed it but I’d be back the next day. Since it was a bit early she thought it was nothing and she’d see us back in six weeks or closer to our due date.

That was one year ago today.

What we didn’t know was that Parker was already on his way. We might have delayed his grand entrance but not by much.

The very next day the contractions hit me. Early in the morning. Strong, deep, painful contractions. Parker would be born five and a half weeks early. We would spend two weeks with him in the NICU. We would have our faith tested and our marriage strengthened.

But we’ll save that story for another day.



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