The weekend was craptacular! Thanks for asking

Oct. 6, 2008

So how was the weekend you may ask (okay, you might not have asked, but I'll tell you anyway)?

It was a suckfest. No other way to describe it. That's right a festival of sucking. I'm not going to say it was the worst weekend of my life or anything overly dramatic like that (the weekend I spent in jail during my visit to Singapore holds that distinction).

So we are hanging out on Friday night, and Julie starts not to feel so hot. You know it -- she's starting to have some contractions. So it's like 10:45 at night and we start timing them. They're coming something like every fifteen minutes. Finally we decide that they aren't getting worse - so we head off to bed thinking "maybe we can sleep them off" (we're not so smart that way - we probably should have done that about two hours earlier).

Anyway, Julie wakes up around 2:00 (yes, an hour of sleep) - and then wakes me up around 2:30 because the contractions have started to become more frequently and stronger. Now they're like every 5 to 8 minutes and they're lasting 30 - 40 seconds. That's actually starting to sound like, crap - this kid is coming. Around 3am we call the doctor (not unlike Hilary's 3am ad I suppose).

Doctor tells us that we should probably come in. This is really where the night went from pretty fun to AWESOME (with extra awesome). Now it's about 3:30 and we didn't want to be alone having all the fun. First up, Julie's parents - sure they may have been up in Boston at the time, and were probably totally asleep, but we weren't going to let 5 hours distance and a lack of sleep ruin our attempt to have them join our party - let's give them a call! So they immediately get in the car. Seriously - we called them back something like thirty minutes later and I think they were just pulling into their driveway. Amazing.

But we didn't want it to be just about family, so we also called Melissa. Granted we called her at about 3:14 telling her to take her time - and at 3:16 she was pulling into our driveway. Weird, you mention to people 'oh yeah - we're having a baby' and people seem to get their ass in motion.

So anyway, to make a long story even longer - we drag ourselves to the hospital at about 5 AM. Turns out the contractions between 3:30 and 5 have become rather erratic so we're not sure what's going on. Whatever, the nurses strap us in (I'm using 'us' in the figurative sense of course - I didn't actually get strapped to anything) - and puts the old contraction monitor on Julie so we can actually see them (you know, just in case I thought Julie was making them up or something). And there they are.......Contractions, and they're pretty strong, or at least that's how they looked on the old monitor thing. The nurse comes in, thinks they are legit (they're 5 min apart now), starts the paperwork and calls the doctor. Of course Julie keeps asking why they aren't hurting more (foreshadowing...)

Everyone keeps leaving open the possibility that we might not be staying, and no one will actually examine Julie until the doctor arrives, which were told will be "sometime this morning". I don't want to be a pain in the ass, but we've been up since 2:30 and we'd like some understanding of what's going on. So we're hanging out, waiting, Julie's having contractions, and I figure my job is done here, so I can just fall asleep. I'm supportive that way. Doctor finally shows up just before 10. By this time, Julie has her fuzzy socks on, I've gone out to get our 1 million bags, and we figure we're having a baby today. It has been 5 hours since we arrived, after all.

Now comes the internal exam. This is awkward for a husband to watch, particularly from the foot of the bed. Avert your eyes. Turns out her cervix hadn't thinned and she wasn't dilating... basically the baby had baricaded itself in there and had no intention of coming out. Since she wasn't 39 weeks yet, they wouldn't consider inducing (yeah... 2 days short). So they kicked us out, contractions and all.

So we're driving home, and its equal parts exhaustion and frustration. I get it. The baby's not ready. But the contractions are 5 minutes apart, and even though we're no longer in the hospital, it's not like they stopped. We're ready now baby. The room is painted and everything. The good news was, I did get home in time to take the little man to swim lessons. And for someone who was afraid of water a few months ago, he's becoming a little fish.

Here we are, a week later. In fact, almost exactly a week later since it's 10:50 PM. Julie has had intermittent contractions, cramps and general discomfort all week and basically stopped working. When laying around and relaxing didn't move things along, she decided to prune four bushes and clean out the rocks in the garden today. We'll see how that works out for us. But if this keeps going, we've got a lot of household projects to tackle. If nothing happens soon, I fully expect a finished basement. Next stop - doctor's appointment Monday when they'll schedule an induction for next week. Anyone want to guess the weight of this monster? Let's see... Parker was 17 days early and 7 lb 14 oz. I figure she's baking a 10 pounder by now.