April 18th, 2008 Contractions start!

Well I am going to be doing a 4 day post remembering back to last year before I had Lydia so bear in mind this is more for journaling purposes, and because I don't every want to forget how special that time of my life was.

Well I woke up at about 5:00 am on Friday April 18th, 2008 and it almost felt like I was going to start my period. I was having really bad back cramps and it woke me up. At first I just brushed it off and really didn't think anything of it. As I was eating my breakfast I started thinking...OH my gosh these could be contractions. Not really knowing what a contraction feels like, I sort of imagined that contractions=screaming, sweating and all sorts of pain. Is what I didn't realize is that they don 't start out that way. So I went to school with a little flutter of excitement and I also started noticing that they were actually starting to get a little painful. When I went into the office my good friend Katherine (she was the secretary) was in there and we started talking and I told her I thought I might be having contractions. So we started talking and determined that they were most likely contractions. We sat in the office timing how far apart they were and they were abou 8-10 minutes. I was a little concerned at the time because my Due date wasn't until May 2nd and I was not prepared to go into labor early. Luckily...actually by divine intervention I had set for my long term sub (Kim Petersen) to come in and observe that day, so I could go over all the lesson plans with her. Luckily I had been working on my lesson plans for months and was totally prepared in that aspect. So Kim came in expecting to observe and left feeling a little apprehensive since she was under the impression that she would have another two weeks to finish out the job she was working at the time.

By about 12:00 the word had gotten around that I was having contractions, of course the principal was out of the school that day and so I thought Oh great I'm stuck here until 3:50 and I'm going to have this baby at the school.

Side note my students are freaking out excited they are all cheering and giving my tummy high five's and hugs and telling "baby" that they couldn't wait to meet her.

So right before lunch Susan Henrie (one of my all time hero's) comes in and tells me that she will take my class so I can go to the hospital. By now my contractions are coming every 5 minutes and they are getting so intense that I am having to stop what I'm doing to concentrate so I don't freak out. So I call Chris (who knew nothing until now) and tell him to get our bags ready, because we are going to the hospital.

So i meet him at the farm and he was so cute he had our bags packed, and Lydia's bag packed and he had the camcorder out ready to document the day our daughter was born. We are both so excited and Chris is calling our parents to tell them that we are heading to the hospital and that they might be grandparents by the end of the day (ha ha ha!)

We were so nieve. So we get to the IMC and first of all Chris get's vallet, because he thinks I'm going to have this baby NOW. So he is telling people to get out of the way, and rushing me in there. So we get to the info desk in the women's center and the nurse ignores us, so Chris pipes up and is like "Can we get some help, my wife is about to have a baby!" now at the time the nurses response made me so mad, and now looking back I realize how right she was. The nurse responds "is this your first baby?" Us-"yes!" Nurse-"Well get in line there are quite a few people waiting and there is no way you are having that baby today!" Both Chris and I look at eachother all confused like whatever I'm having contractions it is going to happen today. So anyways we have to walk around the hospital for two hours before we even get a room. Once we get a room the nurse does some tests and basically tells us I am effaced, but not dialated at all. Asks if I want any pain medecine (which I didn't need at the time) and sends us home.

Huge false alarm, and very dissapointing. So we go back to the farm we got to the hospital at about 1:00 pm and got back to the farm at about 6:00 pm. Now we have had a taste and we want that baby more then ever to be in our arms. So Chris has a master plan that maybe if we shake things up a bit, it might get Lydia a little more motivated to get here. So he sets me up on the riding lawn mower and I mowed the huge lawn at the farm, all the while I am having contractions which are getting worse and worse.

That evening we are watching the news and realize that it is the salt lake marathon and it goes right past the farm (on 6200 S.) So since we are now resolved that we are having this baby soon we pack up our things and go to my parents house to stay, since we knew if I needed to leave during the marathon we were out of luck, and I was not having my baby at the farm (ha ha ha!) So that night kind of ironically we all sat around watching the movie "Juno" and timed my contractions. We finally went to bed and at this point the contractions are getting so bad that I am waking up in so much pain that I can't lay down...

Well if you want to find out what happens next you will have to read tomorrow's post, let's just say that this story is very long and drawn out but worth the wait!