I realize I have five weeks of catching up to do. I’ve been in awe over the tiniest little person that has engulfed my world and therefore you all have been deprived of my daily updates. I apologize, but know you understand and forgive me.
We will start with 2 days before the arrival of our sweet little Hill. I will have a separate blog post for the day of his birth and then we will go from there. I promise not to leave out any details!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
It was around 8am and I was sitting in the kitchen on a stool cleaning out the junk drawer under the phone. That's what most 39 week pregnant ladies do first thing in the morning right? As I am sorting the expired Pizza Hut coupons from the random Wal-Mart receipts my pants become wet. Oh no...ummm...CHIP! I either involuntarily peed my pants or my water is leaking! We sat in the living room for a second wondering what we needed to do and then decided that we should probably Google the situation on the internet. That’s the most logical thing. Google knows everything! Chip searches and instructs me to call the doctor to see what we needed to do. They tell me to get to the hospital so they can check me since I'm so close to my due date and an hour and fifteen minutes from the hospital. I hang up and tell Chip what that the nurse says we need to go to Jackson.
I've always thought my hubby was a cool, calm and collect type of guy until that moment. He lost all motor function skills and capabilities of making any decisions. He jumped out of the recliner running in circles and proclaimed he had to hurry and take a shower. Instead of heading to the bathroom he went straight to the kitchen to warm up some chicken wings from the fridge. Yes, chicken wings – isn’t that what everyone does when they are potentially about to have a baby, eat chicken wings?
He was sitting in the kitchen eating chicken wings as I gathered the last things on my list to take to the hospital since everything else has been packed in the car for 6 months now. I finally sat down with him and asked what he was doing; I thought he was going to take a shower. He said, “I was, but then I got confused and thought I needed to eat.” His train of thought was that I may be in labor for 30 hours so he needed to go ahead and eat. After he ate he jumped in the shower and was still running around like a chicken with his head cut off. It was really amusing and cute and undoubtedly funny.
We jumped in the car and he peeled out of the driveway rocks flying everywhere like a mad man from the Dukes of Hazard. I said, “Sweetie, you don’t have to drive fast I’m ok and not having any contractions…no rush.” He informed me that this was the moment he’d been waiting for, the excuse to be able to drive fast. I let him be. By the time we passed all the awful and slow Leake County drivers on Hwy 35 and hit Hwy 25 the flashers were on and we were hauling bootie to Woman’s Hospital in Flowood, MS. As we pull into Flowood we notice how even though we aren’t in any hurry people don’t adhere to the flashers. The flashers have no power, they have no use, and everyone is oblivious to the flashers. They still travel at snail speed and don’t get out of your way. Good thing it wasn’t a true emergency or his worst fear of my birthing our baby in the car would have come true!
We get to the hospital; we have to go through admissions where they are waiting for us. They put me in a room and make me put on a gown and lay in bed. They spent 45 minutes asking questions from why I had my tonsils removed when I was 6 to does my husband beat me. Very interesting. They examine me and come to the conclusion my water had not broken. In fact, I had only peed my pants. Fabulous. Wonderful. So glad I’m 29 years old and can’t tell the difference between my water breaking and peeing myself. We pack up shop and they tell me to take my pillows and blood pressure cuff with me and bring it back with me so I’m not charged for them again come Tuesday when I have my scheduled c-section. That was mighty thoughtful of them.
So we get in the car, go get me something to eat because remember Chip ate chicken wings earlier and I was starving. Then we slowly drive home…no baby.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Chip and I headed to Jackson early because we were meeting up with the wonderful people at the Blake Clinic so they could give us a few things that may assist with Hill once he was born. It was so cold outside that the city of Jackson had a massive water pipe breakage that caused most all businesses to shut down in the downtown area due to no running water. Yes, yes, we normally do have running water in Mississippi, but this was an exception. With that said, the Blake Clinic people who were planning on being there the day Hill was born would not be able to come due to weather conditions and their offices being closed. The lady was so sweet! Even though their offices were closed down she waited for us to arrive to Jackson and met us at a convenient location to go over what we needed to do, gave us some supplies to help cleft babies and showed us how to use the special bottles and even gave us both her and the speech therapist in charges cell and home phone number if we needed anything come Tuesday morning.
Let me explain the Blake clinic. It is a fabulous federally funded program to help children like mine with potential disabilities; they provide supplies, support, education and many other wonderful things. For example; depending on the severity of a cleft lip / palate the child may require special bottles. These bottles are about $30 a pop. You need new ones each month because the nipples wear down and become soft so they can’t suck - so if you only used 6 bottles a month then that’s $180 a month in just bottles. The Blake Clinic helps parents obtain these bottles as a service, no charge each month. What a wonderful program to help not only cleft children and families but other children with disabilities.
After we met with her and gathered the goods we headed to Dr. North’s office. This is the day we get to see our baby for the last time on a sonogram before we meet him in person. Our appointment was at 3:00 for the sonogram and we got the same sweet technician that stayed late when we found out about Hill’s cleft to help us understand and try to find out the severity of our sweet boys condition. She remembered us and tried hard to see again if she could make his hands move from his face and rotate images, but our stubborn unborn little one wouldn’t cooperate. She guesstimated his weight at 8lbs 3oz and said everything looked great!
At 3:30 we met with Dr. North and he said all systems were a go for our arrival in the morning at 5:30am. He assured me I was not a weirdo for peeing my pants and thinking my water had broken. He’s always so sympathetic. So glad he’s the first face my baby sees. We were still on for my being the first surgery of the morning at 7:00am.
In the mean time as all of this was going on, my mom, dad and step mom were landing at the gigantic Jackson-Evers Airport, or as I like to refer to it as the old Wal-Mart building they converted to the area airport. We met them at the hotel we were going to stay at since we’d all need to wake up super early to be at the hospital. After we checked in we went and ate at Outback Steakhouse because I wanted steak and it was the only restaurant in the area open due to the weather / water issue.
After we ate we came back to the hotel and everyone, except me, had a glass of wine or scotch and chit chatted about how excited they were. I was so full and tired I decided to head up to bed early. Once I got to the room I set every alarm clock, cell phone alarm and called the front desk and explained to them the importance of my wake up call. I was having a baby and couldn’t be late! I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. I was so tired, but so excited that I couldn’t sleep. I really wasn’t nervous, just ready. Ready to meet my sweet little boy. Ready to see what obstacles he had ahead of him. Ready to see what a wonderful daddy my husband was going to be. Ready to see the faces of my family when they met Hill for the first time. Ready to kiss his sweet cheeks. Ready for this whole experience. I was ready and it was finally here! The longest yet shortest 39 weeks of my life was here and my whole entire world would never ever be the same…only better from here on out.
