Sorry to leave you hanging, friends. It's been a rough time learning how to balance all my responsibilities with two kids in tow. But here is the much-anticipated continuation of Abram's birth story. There will be one more part after this one, to keep the post from getting too terribly lengthy.
November 18th was cold. Winter was starting to creep in, whether I liked it or not. The good thing was, this meant I was getting closer to my December 3rd due date. I was so done with being pregnant. Every day I secretly hoped that it would be the day this baby would come out. Delivering my last two babies early (Brady three weeks and Lily five weeks) made me a bit impatient, I guess. We were down to two weeks left with this one and I’d started to try encouraging the little man to make his arrival: long walks, deep cleaning the house, spicy foods, you name it. He wasn’t taking the bait, however, and so we had scheduled one last date night for that evening.
We dropped Brady off at our neighbors’ and then headed over to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. The lobby was packed, which was pretty typical for a Friday night. My gigantic belly seemed to be getting in everybody’s way, no matter how I positioned myself. I was relieved when we were finally seated so I would no longer feel like a road block and because the contractions were making me uncomfortable. I’d been having light contractions very irregularly for a few weeks, just like I had before Lily was born. As hard as I wished for them to become strong and regular and get the ball rolling, they just came and went as they pleased and weren’t anything to make a fuss about. So we enjoyed our time together and our dinners and ordered cheesecake to go. As we stepped outside to the parking lot, huge beautiful flakes of snow were falling from the sky. Craig went to get the car while I waited by the door and then we headed back home, picking Brady up on the way, to enjoy our cheesecakes in the comfort of sweats and pajamas.
The next morning I was up before everyone else, as usual; my fidgety, restless legs couldn’t take lying still in bed any longer than was absolutely necessary. I headed back to the office to do a little bit of work on the computer where I could get up and wiggle around as much as I wanted. My typical irregular contractions were still there, just like every day for the past few weeks. But by eight o'clock I started to notice that they were actually becoming more regular. About eight to ten minutes apart. “Hmmm,” I thought. “We’ll have to wait and see where this goes…” Craig had to go to the church that morning to help clean and Brady was going with him. He headed out with a promise from me that I’d call him if anything interesting started to happen. I decided to clean up the house, just in case, and by the time they returned at ten o'clock, I was fairly certain: we were having a baby that day. I was so excited! But my contractions were still only about eight minutes apart. They were just becoming more intense. It looked like it might end up being a long day.
Still, I started to get some things together for Brady and called the neighbors to let them know what was going on and that he’d be coming over to play for awhile. About halfway through my preparations Craig had to take charge because my contractions were getting too strong for me to focus on much else – especially an excitedly bouncing four year old. But they were still seven to eight minutes apart. Why weren’t they getting any closer together?! I was becoming really concerned and emotional that I was already in so much pain and it seemed like we still had so far to go. I wasn’t sure if I could handle a long labor (again I’ve been spoiled – Brady’s birth was ten hours and Lily’s only six). Craig helped calm me down and I called our midwife, Rebecca, to help calm him down. He was a starting to worry about nobody else being there yet. But I strategically called her between contractions so that she wouldn’t know how much I was hurting. In hindsight that was a bad idea, but at the moment I really thought we still had plenty of time left and I didn't want to rush anybody. Soon, I'd know better.
Stay tuned for Part III of Abram's birth later this week. And this time I mean it; it's already written and ready to go! You can read Part I: Why We Chose a Home Birth right here.
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