Elizabeth's birth story, part 1

I started having braxton hicks contractions in early January. I was nervous about getting past January 15th as that was the deadline to be legally eligible for maternity leave.  And I was nervous about recognizing when labor was truly starting with enough time to get childcare lined up for Jaime.

When the 15th passed, I gave a little cheer. Eligible for FMLA, woo hoo!

On Thursday the 16th while we making dinner I felt a nice sharp contraction.  It was real feeling and had follow ups so I had Dan to the lifting for Jaime as it didn't feel good to pick him up and  downloaded a contraction app.

In the morning on the 17th I headed into work but felt a little off. A guy offered me his seat on the massively crowded train and I usually decline but this time really needed to sit so took him up on it and felt a wave of tears coming on. Bizarre. I sat there wondering if it was the day and thinking it would be convenient to have things kick off while the nanny was already taking care of James.

I went about my day at work, with the occassional contraction. At the end of the day my manager stopped by and said "baby, you stay put for another week!" And we chatted with a couple other coworkers, one of them saying how I don't look tired of it yet. But in the back of my head I knew that I could very well be in the earliest phase of labor and that at just a few days short of 39 weeks it was likely not going to be a whole lot longer. I just knew that I wouldn't go overdue.

On the way home I felt even more 'not myself.'

I got off the train at my stop and it felt like a lot to go up the stairs. I stopped at the convenience store at the corner to buy Jaime some animal crackers and as I went to get ice cream I paused, thinking maybe I would in the hospital soon and so didn't need to get ice cream... I got it anyways, cookies and cream.

That night after dinner as we watched tv I kept track of my contractions. They were real alright. And consistent. I wondered about when to call the babysitter and if we could hold on till morning.

That night I did really sleep. I was getting very strong contractions from midnight until around four that were 8-10 minutes apart.  I would barely start to doze off and then get a super strong contraction to derail any sleep plans. I was going back and forth between the couch and the bed trying to get comfortable. Dan and James were totally passed out, sleeping hard during this time. At some point I thought I should write out the meals to give Jaime for our babysitter, write down the various phone numbers and the address to the hospital.

Around five-something am the contractions were five minutes apart. I decided that it was time to call the doctor and to wake up Dan. Doctor said to head in - I am pretty sure they wanted me to call and go in when the contractions were 10 minutes since this is my second baby but I didn't want to spend all those hours in the hospital.

Dan showered and made coffee. But first he asked me if I was sure, yes honey, I am sure. Then I showered and packed my bag. Jaime woke up and was like lets party.

We called the nanny at 5:45 am but she didn't answer. So we called our babysitter who answered on the first or second ring, she had woken up to go to the bathroom just a few minutes before. She was at our place in 15 minutes.  And after a quick hand off it was time to go. I got a super sweet hug from Jaime and we headed out to catch a cab.

The cab ride was like five minutes, it was a quick, quiet trip across the park to the east side with zero traffic on a cold winter morning before sunrise. We were checked into the hospital at 6:30 am.  A quick exam and they said, "um yeah, you need to be admitted now."

At this point, I was so very relieved that the past 38 weeks and 5 days had been predominately healthy, we had childcare for Jaime when go time arrived, that I made it to the FMLA deadline, and that while the contractions were getting painful, everything was going smoothly.