I always have mixed feelings on the girl’s birthdays. I love to shower them with gifts and create a special day for them. I also replay their birth in my head and it makes me a bit sad and sentimental to think my babies aren’t babies anymore.
Flower’s birth has a little story behind it...as most do I suppose. I’ll start off by saying the actual birthing part was a piece of cake…compared to Princess. I had an epidural, my doctor and Dear Husband spent the evening watching college basketball in my room while I progressed, and at 9:00 pm my doctor said let’s give it a try. I pushed twice and Flower was here. I didn’t break a sweat. I was wearing makeup that day because I didn’t think I would be in the hospital and I didn’t even smear my mascara. DH stills talks about the night and day difference in the girl’s births.
The days leading up to Flower’s birth are where the story gets a little more interesting. My brother proposed to his girlfriend around Christmas 2005. We were all very excited about Auntie S joining our family. They set the date. March 10th 2007. We decided Princess needed a sibling early in the summer of 2006. I figured things would take a while so there was no need to really plan for baby #2, we’d just let nature take its course. Turns out nature worked quickly and in July I was starting to think we might have a little…um…scheduling conflict.
I work with numbers. Numbers are my thing. I like numbers. I wasn’t a first-time mother. I had a pretty good idea when baby #2 would arrive. I finally bit the bullet, peed on the stick, and immediately jumped on the internet to find a due date calculator. I tried 3 or 4 different sites because I didn’t like the answer I was getting. March 7th. Three days before my brother’s wedding.
Fortunately I wasn’t in the wedding which was about 3 ½ hours away from where we live. I tried not to obsess about my due date throughout my pregnancy, and for those of you who know me know it wasn’t easy. I finally just decided (after much, much discussion with Homestead) that things will happen, we’ll prepare the best we can, and everything will be fine. My biggest worry wasn’t missing the wedding; I had come to terms with that, although I would have been immensely disappointed. My main concern was Princess. She was a flower girl and only two at the time. She hadn’t been away from us much, maybe only once or twice overnight and never traveled overnight without us. She would be in good hands, my parents and sisters would take care of her as well as Nana, but I was still worried….it’s a mom-thing.
Our family started to arrive the Wednesday before the wedding (Flower’s due date) so I took the rest of the week off. I was feeling fine, maybe a mild contraction here or there, but nothing of concern. DH and I finally came up with a plan I could live with (DH thought we should just stay home). Nana would take Princess to the rehearsal on Friday and DH and I would drive up Saturday morning providing we weren’t at the hospital. I was very lucky to have already had a completely uneventful pregnancy with Princess and the second time around my pregnancy was just as “boring”. We had discussed the possibility of traveling after my due date with my doctor and his response was “I’ll send a copy of your file with you….they have a hospital there too.”
Saturday morning we got up and headed to the wedding. We arrived around noon, the wedding was at two, and the reception followed. I had packed a bag for the hospital and we brought the infant carrier just in case. Everything was going just fine. It was actually very entertaining to hear all the whispers as I walked around the church. “There’s the groom’s sister, she was suppose to have the baby 3 days ago!” We were able to briefly visit with family we hadn’t seen in a long time.
We made it to the reception and enjoyed a lovely dinner. Just as I was finishing my meal I decided we need to hit the road. I won’t go into the details here, but let’s just say that circumstances had changed. I looked at DH and said we need to go, now! He started to gather our stuff and I grabbed Princess and started to make my way around the room saying our goodbyes. Princess was not happy she would have to miss the cake and dancing.
It was dark by this time, around 7:30 pm. It is a 3 ½ hour drive home, half of which is a two lane road with very few towns and no hospitals. DH was not thrilled about this. Princess was exhausted and she immediately fell asleep. I began to have a few contractions so I was watching the clock and trying not to let DH know. He was already stressed and I figured he needed to concentrate on the road. We didn’t talk much on the ride home, both of us playing out the possible scenarios in our head. My contractions were mild, but consistent. About 15 miles before we got to the one town with a hospital I began to pray. “Dear Lord, if we need to stop at the hospital you need to let me know now.” The next town with a hospital (home) was another 1 ½ hours away. Within seconds my prayer was answered and my contractions stopped. Thank you God!
The rest of the ride home was fairly quiet. DH was driving like a maniac, fearful of delivering a baby on the side of the road. We made it home without incident, unpacked a few things and went to bed. I was sure I would awake with contractions during the night and we would head to the hospital. We woke up the next morning and I felt fine.
There had been a few signs of labor, besides the contractions, the previous day so I decided to call my doctor’s office and find out if I needed to be concerned. I spoke with the on-call doc and he told me to go to the hospital. I tried to explain further but he wasn’t listening…there was some question as to a leaking issue so he didn’t want to take any chances. The hospital bag was still in the pickup so I picked up a few things around the house, we took Princess over to Nana and Papa’s, and started to make our way to the hospital. The normal protocol is calling the hospital to let them know you are on your way. When I got the OB unit the nurse she said they were waiting for me. Apparently the on-call doc had called my doc who then called the hospital…I guess we were supposed to hurry.
I really didn’t think I was in labor, heck, I felt fine. I was hungry because we hadn’t gotten around to breakfast yet and it was almost 11:00. After I called the hospital I thought about picking up bagels and coffee but decided to go to the hospital first, get checked out and sent home for the day, and then we’d go have a nice leisurely breakfast. Turns out the nurse had different orders. I was dilated a little and the nurse couldn’t get a good reading to determine whether I was losing amniotic fluid. She called my doctor and he said to keep me there and test again. So we hung out in the pre-admission closet. The nurse tested again and still no conclusive results. My doctor stopped by and decided since we were all at the hospital we might as well get the show on the road. They moved me to a real room and started the pitocin. So much for coffee and bagels.
Nine hours later Flower graced us with her presence and the rest is history. Happy birthday my beautiful baby girl! You make us smile with your silly faces and adore your big sister. I can’t wait for all the amazing things you will show us this year.
Love - Mommy
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