The birth of Samuel Cary part 1 - am I in labor?

I am going to guess that this will be a long post but the point is so that I can remember what happened.  I feel like some details are already fading or blurring together, so I want to try to write out as much of the story as I can remember.  I will intersperse cute pictures of my kid if you just want to see baby pictures.

Thursday, April 20th was a normal day - I got up, went to work, and came home.  The next day was a comp day for conferences, so I was looking forward to a three day weekend.  I stayed after school and made sure all my grading was done and my sub binder was ready to go.  I really believed that I would be back at school on Monday, but on the off chance that something happened, I wanted to leave everything in good shape.  *At this point, my first three subs had canceled on me so I did not know who would be my sub should I have the baby over the weekend.*  During 4th period Calc BC that day, the kids asked how they would know if I went into labor or not.  We decided on a secret code: I would tweet out "have a good day" whenever I was at the hospital having the baby.  A lot of the kiddos wanted me to give birth on 4/20 and I was bound and determined that it would not happen.

Easter Sunday - five days before Samuel arrived

Once I got home, I made a to-do list for the next day (run to Costco, pack a bag for the hospital, write thank you notes etc.) and then Ian and I worked on rearranging our bedroom.  I wanted to put the bed in a corner (really inconvenient for Ian to get in and out of bed now) but it was the only way to create more space in our bedroom.  We had been talking about rearranging our bedroom for a month or so and I was glad that we finally got it done.

I had had a cold for most of the week and my nurse practitioner suggested that I try some Tylenol PM if I could not sleep. Since I had a lot that I wanted to accomplish the next day, I decided to take a Tylenol PM and get a good night of sleep.  Ian went to hang out with his brother and some friends but had to work the next day so I knew that he would not be too late.  I think I went to bed around 8 pm and was out like a light.  I woke up at 11 and thought, "something is different".  I got up to use the restroom and realized that I had completely soaked myself.  I was definitely feeling the Tylenol PM at this point and drowsily told Ian that either my water had broke or I had slept so deeply that I had peed myself.

We tried to google the difference and that was not helpful.  I told him that we could call the hospital and check with them.  We did not get a direct answer from the hospital (due to our health insurance provider) but Ian stuck with it and kept finding numbers to call until he could talk to someone.  I had gone back to bed and was trying to fall back asleep.  The questions that we got asked were...interesting... "Are you having contractions? {No, if I was, I would be timing them and know when to go into the hospital} Is part of the baby exposed? {NO! If I had half a baby hanging out of me, I would not be talking to you.}" Even though we answered no to each question she asked us, we were still encouraged to go in and be evaluated.  She reminded us that if part of the baby became exposed on the ride to the hospital to pull over and call 911.

I grabbed my purse and Ian grabbed the camera (I rolled my eyes and told him to leave it at home) and we headed to the hospital.  The whole way there we laughed about being first-time parents and how we were going to get sent home.  I was hopeful that we would be back home and asleep by 1 am.

We did not really take into consideration that it was the middle of the night.  We parked where we had planned and went to enter the hospital only to realize all the doors were locked so we started walking in the street (there weren't any sidewalks) to another entrance.  At this point I was laughing out loud - it was freezing so Ian was walking fast but I couldn't keep up - and the whole scenario was hilarious to my sleep deprived mind.

We finally figured out how to get into the hospital. Ian was so great - he wanted to give anyone and everyone all the details as to why we were at the hospital.  I was like, "Cut the chase - it is a security guard, he does not want to know our whole life story - just show him your ID".  We headed up to the labor and delivery floor and were shown to triage (a room that is none too big with a bed, a baby bed and warmer, a bathroom, and a monitoring system... and a chair for Ian to sit in).

Our triage nurse's name was Jennifer and she was energetic! I got changed, she hooked me up for monitoring and then tested to see if my water had broken.  I had to chuckle because the way you find out is watching a small piece of paper - if there is one line your water has not broken, if there are two lines, then your water has broken (just like a pregnancy test).  Jennifer told us that it could take up to 10 minutes to get the results.  Ian and I watched the clock as it was 11:55 pm at this point.  I was pretty positive that I would not have a baby in the next five minutes, but we had nothing else to do, so watch the clock we did.  4/20 came to an end and April 21st began.  Jennifer came in to check the results.  I rambled on about how I could kinda see the second line but it was not super visible and yada, yada, yada.  She took one look and gave us a big smile and said, "There are two lines!  We are having a baby!"  

My first reaction (mentally) "Can we just freeze all of this and I can come back in a few days!?!?  I have stuff to do tomorrow (well now tomorrow was today). Can we just wait 24 hours?" I think I just stared at her.  She told us we were going to be moved into a labor and delivery room and she would be back in a moment.  Ian and I just stared at each other and laughed nervously as we waited.  And mentioned repeatedly how shocked we both were.

Jennifer came back pretty quickly and started to escort us to our new room.  Someone from admissions was waiting for us in the hallway and was asking for information and signatures - I will make the following statement several times - you could have asked me to sign anything at that moment and I would have been in so much shock that I would have signed my name to just about anything.