Did I ever tell you...?

So, in the excitement of Elena's birth, I don't think I ever told the story of what REALLY happened when I went into labor.

It was a Wednesday. I came home from work early that day. There wasn't much to do at work, as all elements of my job had already transitioned to the temp that would be filling in for me. I was to the point in the pregnancy where my energy was tapped by about 3pm everyday, so I was grateful that my supervisors were flexible enough to let me go early.

I had eaten two frozen burritos for lunch when I got home, and then rested through the afternoon. After Ray got home, the evening progressed as normal. By 10pm, I was in bed. I needed plenty of sleep to recoop and get up for work in the morning.

Unfortunately, those burritos had come back to haunt me. I was having some pretty annoying lower abdominal pressure. "I really need some sleep tonight. This is just great," I thought. "I hope I can sleep this off."

By the time Ray went to bed, the pressure was no better. At midnight, I was up and walking around, trying to relieve the pressure somehow. I was a few days overdue at this point, so I figured I might as well put some of those techniques from the child birth classes to use for SOMETHING!! I walked, I massaged, I walked more. No relief; it was worse, if nothing else. By 2, I thought, "This doesn't feel the way labor is described, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'd better start timing these pains."

So I started timing. The pains came at odd intervals. 8 minutes, 6 minutes, 10 minutes. No, this wasn't labor. This was bad burritos. More walking, more massaging. God love Ray, he got up every now and again to check on me. I'd tell him there was nothing he could do to help. He'd go back to bed, only to get up a half hour later to check again.

Finally around 4am, we decided to go to the hospital. Maybe the Birth Center in town could give me something to help with the pain. So off we went to the hospital. of course we took all our "going to have a baby" stuff, but this was just bad burritos.

When we arrived at the hospital, I told the nurse that I was having gas pains and just needed an assessment. The glance that passed between nurses was not lost on Ray or I. It was a knowing glance. Here's another woman who is having "gas pains."

A nurse took me into an exam room, strapped on the monitors and within a short time told me that my contractions (contractions?! What?! No, gas pains!!!) were 4 minutes apart. How could this be? When my contractions are 10 minutes apart, I will leave for Ann Arbor. That is the plan. We planned this. This plan has been in place for months. Nope, back up, do over.

At that point everything went into fast forward for a few hours. I needed to get to Ann Arbor. Would we make it? The doctors weren't sure. If we were going to go, it would have to be with some speed. More speed that we could legally do on our own. So the ambulance came, the "going to have a baby" stuff stayed in the car, and we rushed off to Ann Arbor.

Once we got to Ann Arbor, fast forward ended, slow motion began, labor progressed SL-O-O-O-WLY, 19 hours passed, and the rest is Elena's history. As stressful as the situation was at the time, this was a really good lesson for me at a critical time. As a result of this experience, I realized very quickly that I would not be able to plan my life the way I had in the past. I realized that life with Elena would be VERY different!