Saturday, November 21st: Baby update

The day before this (Friday) I was only 1 cm dilated and had pretty much no progress on the ‘getting ready to give birth’ front. I was grumpy, frustrated, crampy, and generally on a rampage.

To cheer myself up I left Ian with JD and made a trip to Hebert’s candy mansion. This is exactly what it sounds like: a huge mansion house where they make and sell all sorts of candy, mostly of the chocolate variety. It’s a happy place.

My boss had told me that she kicked off her own labor by eating apple pancakes, a whole chunk of almond bark from Hebert’s, and an orange soda. I didn’t do this all at once but I did have apple pancakes in the morning and ate a whole chunk of almond bark on the way back from Hebert’s.

That night was game night (Star Wars RPG) but some of our players were not there so we went out to dinner instead. That was amusing – we went to the Blackstone Valley Shoppes for dinner on a Sat., during Xmas shopping season. A mall that has a movie theatre by the way, and it was opening night of the second Twilight movie – New Moon. It was a mad house.

We went to the Mexican food restaurant and I had spicy tacos and about 4 sips of beer (suggested by my mom to get labor going). And would don’t you know…

All day I had been feeling a little crampy and was not looking forward to the next week. I was scheduled for induction the next Friday and it was going to be a long, long week. At the restaurant the vague ache turned into a very definite ouch. JD was sure I was in labor. I was sure it was just cramps. By 12pm I admitted it – I was in labor. And man, it hurt!

With Ian I was vaguely uncomfortable. The contractions were like a vise closing around my body, an intense feeling of tightness. I had back labor so the worst of it all was the pain in my lower back. With Evie it was sharp cramps that made thinking impossible. Between 12am and 3am I tried to repack my overnight bag several times and finally gave up. I couldn’t focus on anything but breathing through the cramps and trying not to panic.

I called my mom and she said she would come look after Ian. Until she got there our upstairs neighbor Ken agreed to watch him and we transferred Ian upstairs into Ken’s daughter Hannah’s bed. Then, 3am on a cold November night, we drove to the hospital.