Be Careful What You Wish For

You've heard that old saying before.

It's true.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and I though to my little self, "When I get to create planets, I will make bubble gum trees!"

My little heart wanted those bubble gum trees so desperately.

But, what if I got what I wanted?

I would have an entire planet full of wads of chewed up gum all over the place, stuck under bushes, and probably wiped on the animals and rocks...

That would drive me bonkers.

I know it would because I spent a summer scraping gum off the bottoms of desks.

Anyway, this blog isn't about gum.

Back in February, I ended up throwing everyone into a tizzy because I thought I had gone into labor and rushed to the hospital.

To be fair, I WAS in labor, but Body pooped out, and decided to go back to sleep.

I dilated one centimeter, and then went home.

"Poop," I grumbled to myself. "I'm not coming back unless my water breaks..."

(I wasn't the only one who was disappointed. When we walked into the living room Lily ran up, arms outstretched and asked, "Where's the baby?" She stood there, arms out, expecting me to hand her something, and I could only point to my belly and say that, sorry, baby was still inside.)

Now, I knew the likelihood of my water breaking was pretty low, since out of five children, it had only happened once, and that was way back at child number two, and so I figured my bag of waters was more like a Rubbermade container.

Yet, every time I climbed over a baby gate, or into my overly tall bed, I would pause for a breath, anxiously expecting it to burst and send me into full-blown labor.

Alas, it was not to be...

Week after week, I griped to myself about being pregnant (YES, I KNOW it's my own fault for getting pregnant, no need to tell me! *COUGH*EMILY*COUGH*), and I eventually refused to even time contractions. I would waddle around the house muttering, "I'm not going to the hospital unless my water breaks..."

And I would sigh, and resign myself to being pregnant for the rest of my life.

I was afraid what Mom had said would come true.

I mean, she had said when I was pregnant with Leah that it would be fun if I had her on St. Patrick's Day, and that's exactly what happened. So, when Mom said that she had gone two weeks late with one her babies, and looked knowingly at me, I knew, just KNEW, that's what was going to happen, if I ever had the baby at all, which was beginning to look like the case. Because that happens all the time.

Two Sunday's ago, we were slated to attend my nephew's homecoming talk and I still felt like I would be pregnant for the rest of my life. We arrived at the building and took our seats in the chapel. Our family began to trickle in, and Mom walked up to our pew. She put her hand on my (VERY) pregnant belly, and said gently, "Come out!"

My little heart leaped with hope for a moment, and then I stomped on that hope, crushing it beneath my swollen feet, squeezing its soul between my toes.

After the meeting was over we all congregated at Jenny's house for a fiesta. I sat myself on the floor, and spent a good deal of the afternoon catching up with family. Missy at one point sat down next to me and put her hand on my belly, and then put her lips really close to my belly button and said, "COME OUT!"

Again, my heart wanted to hope that all these imploring words would somehow induce labor, but I again shrugged it off, and ate some more molten cheese and cookies.

That night, Jeremy and I decided that going to bed at 7:00 PM was a magnificent idea, since we had gone to bed super late the night before. Jeremy and I read for a while, and a short time later Jeremy drifted off to sleep. Three minutes after he fell asleep, I had one doozie of a contraction. I waited anxiously for a few minutes for another one to happen, and since Body has a mind of its own, and is petulant most of the time, nothing happened, so I kept reading. Twenty minutes later, Contraction of Death #2 happened, and it told my bladder that I should go to the bathroom. I rolled out of bed, and BAM.

Or rather, GUSH.

Erm...

I waddled, knees locked together, to the bathroom, not sure exactly what had happened. Body, being the snarky thing she is, obliged by doing it again, this time with more gusto, and I called out to Jeremy.

"Jeremy!" (See, I told you I called out.)

"ZZZzzz...?"

"JEREMY!"

"...Wha...?"

"JEREMY!"

Jeremy's disheveled head appeared around the bathroom doorway, his eyes bloodshot and droopy.

"What?" he replied, exasperated.

"My water broke..."

His eyes widened.

"Oh, I thought you wanted toilet paper."

Then he went into full-blown panicky father mode, and ran around the house trying to gather his wits while I stood in the bathroom trying to keep everything from falling out while dealing with all the relatives of the Contractions of Death numbers one and two, and wondering in between why it was that Jeremy was so grumpy about having to get me toilet paper if I had needed it.

After calling Mom and Dad, we left Josh in charge, and headed off to the hospital.

Let me tell you...walking up a full flight of stairs while having contractions and water leaking out is very awful.

We arrived at the hospital, got situated in the room, I got poked many, many times by the nurses who couldn't seem to find the right vein, squeezed Jeremy's hand very, very tightly during the horrid contractions, and finally got all the drugs in me. I sat back, expecting a long night.

The nurses had asked me repeatedly how long my other labors had taken.

"Seven to twelve hours," I responded, ignoring the mounting pressure I was feeling in my pelvis.

After the epidural was proven to work, my labor nurse, Sadie, tried to put in my catheter.

She struggled for a bit, and finally got it in.

She then announced she was going to check me, and as she did, she said a little surprised, "oh," and then announced, "No wonder I couldn't get it in right away... your baby is crowning. Don't cough, don't sneeze...cross your legs. I'll run and get the doctor."

I had been there less than two hours.

My doctor ran in, and got down to business.

Two pushes later, out came Emma.

She emerged screaming, which I took as a good thing, but in retrospect, maybe I should have been worried about my future with her...

They cleaned her up while Jeremy stood by protectively, and, once they were done, handed me my little blob of goo.

Love.

Just love.

Emma spent the next two hours soaking in her surroundings before falling asleep.

Jeremy was dead on his feet, poor man.

I was wide awake, and, hooray for drugs, was super glad that I wasn't a pioneer. 

Comments

Katscratchme said…
I'm all for two-push babies. :)
We need an Emma cartoon.... ;)
Anonymous said…
I KNOW, right?? I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how to draw her...
Bethany said…
Congratulations! I'm a huge fan of fast labors, or rather, my kids are. That's all they gave me.

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