A Cell Phone Tells the Story

WARNING: VERY long post. Also the possibility of "too much information."

The simplest way to share the story of our baby's birth is to share my cell phone log with you with a little bit of details filled in between calls. Really, it was only by using the log from my cell phone that we had any idea of when things happened. But before I start with the log, I'll give a few details leading up to the big events.

For the past week, I had been having occasional contractions, but they were not steady nor were they painful. Monday night I had a little bit of unexpected nausea, and I had a thought that labor could be coming, but I had that thought many times over the past couple of weeks, and knew not to get my hopes up. I had a very good night's sleep and Tuesday morning started out normally. Ike and Boo got up about 6:20, so I did, too. I did notice before long that my formerly unpainful contractions were causing a little pain now. But again, I didn't think much of it at that time. When I think of all the things I did between 6:20 and 10:30 that morning, it makes me laugh. I obviously didn't know labor was underway or I would have focused on some different things...like getting our bags completely packed. But like I said before, I was oblivous. So I fed the kids breakfast (an important thing), ate breakfast myself, checked up on my blogs and Facebook, got the kids dressed, showered, finished the church's deposit for the week, prepared a couple of deposits for our own bank accounts, made the bed, and worked on arranging a babysitter for the kids during my ultrasound and non-stress test at 12:30 that day. Here's where I can turn to the cell phone.

8:12 am--I text Buddy's phone with the following message "Don't get your hopes up too much, but something may be happening here."
8:24 am--I call Jami to find out what time she is working at my parents' house that day. I have a payroll to get done for my business which is based out of my parents' house also, and I want to get it done right away that morning "just in case."
8:41 am--Leave message at Amanda's house asking if she can keep kids during my appointment.
8:46 am--Call Buddy to find out what his plan is for the day, and to let him know that it looks like we need to start thinking about rearranging things so we can go to the hospital.
8:50 am--Accidentally call my sister Keri in Texas instead of my sister Jodi here, but hang up before the phone rings.
8:50 am--Call Jodi's number this time and get Keri's voice mail. (Has this ever happened to anyone else? It's happened to me twice now.) Leave message for Keri explaining mistake.
8:52 am--Call Jodi's number again and get her this time. Ask if the kids can stay with her during my appointment and warn her that it may "be time" since she is planning to keep my kids while we have the baby. Tell her that I may bring the kids a little earlier than my appointment so I can get go to the OB department to get assessed before my scheduled ultrasound at 12:30.
8:56 am--Leave second message at Amanda's house letting her know childcare is taken care of.
8:58 am--Receive call from Keri since she missed my call. Let her know that she may have a new niece today, but I'm not sure if it's true labor yet.
9:33 am--Call Buddy to let him know this is for real and ask when he can come home. He says he'll be home within the hour, but call him if I need him sooner. At this point I'm getting a little scared of being there by myself with the kids, but I know Buddy's business is very busy right now and I don't want to take him away from it unneccesarily, so I don't tell him that I'm getting nervous. Don't think I'm such a strong, supportive wife, because if I had known where I was in labor, I would have told him to come immediately. :)
9:39 am--I call the OB department at the hospital to tell them I will be coming in before my scheduled appointment, probably within an hour and a half. (Side note: I was there within an hour and a half, just not the way I expected to be.)

Let me insert here that Buddy and I had hoped to keep the birth as quiet as possible--just letting my sister know since she was watching our kids. I'm laughing right now just thinking about that hope of secrecy. But the desire for secrecy made me hesitant to say much during the next call.

9:57 am--My mom calls me. On her way into town, she had passed Jami headed to her house and thought it was me, so was calling me to find out what I was headed to do. At this point I am in transition, but I don't know it. I ask my mom where she is going in town. She says the dentist. I hesitate, but finally tell her that I'm in labor. She asks if I want her to come get the kids. I say yes because I'm starting to realize things are progressing quickly and we probably won't have time to get the kids to Jodi's house. (I know her call was the Lord's work and not "just a coincedence." If she had not come when she did, I may have had a baby all by myself...well, with my other three children present, too. Yikes!) My mom arrives by 10:00 and things start to go crazy. She is trying to herd the kids to the door and I'm trying to find their blankies in between contractions. Seeing how close and strong my contractions are, my mom starts to panic. She tells me not to be afraid to call Buddy and tell him to come now.
10:04 am--I call Buddy and ask if he can come right now. He says yes. After this phone call, I tell my mom I have to go to the bathroom and she gets the kids out the door to her van. While I'm in the bathroom, my water breaks (approximately 10:08 am). From here on out, I'm sorry if I give too much information. :) I kick off my lower clothing, grab a towel, and peek out into the living room and out the patio door to see my mom starting our van--doing whatever she can to get us ready to go faster. I think it's while she's out there that she calls my dad and asks him to find Buddy and tell him he needs to come NOW (my dad met Buddy running to his car). I'm half-crying, half-yelling for her. At this point I know Buddy and I will not make it to the hopital, and I don't want him to have to deliver a baby in the van. My mom comes back in the house.
10:10 am--I tell my mom to call an ambulance, and she does. I'm sitting on the towel on the living room floor saying our address for her.

That is where the calls end. The rest of the times are just approximate, except for the time of birth.

Buddy arrives home about two minutes after the 9-1-1 call. He asks me how far apart contractions are. I tell him I haven't had a chance to time them.

The first responder, Dan, arrives right behind Buddy. He is our garbage man. The kids just waved out the window to him around 9:00 am when he picked up our garbage. He arrives in the garbage truck. (And, yes, I'm sure he washed his hands. He also put on gloves.)

The police chief arrives right after Dan. We hear ambulance sirens and I'm surprised at how fast they are, but am told they are going out on a previous call. Oh. Dan sends the police chief to get a doctor--any doctor--from a local clinic. Meanwhile, Buddy and Dan are helping me through contractions and trying to get me more comfortable on the living room floor. They are really hoping that the doctor or an ambulance arrives before the baby does.

Somewhere in here, a county police officer arrives and then goes back out to direct traffic away from our street. A second "first responder" also arrives. An ambulance is enroute from my hospital with an OB nurse onboard.

Around 10:23, an ambulance arrives--the second unit from our small town. The police chief also returns with a doctor, and the doctor and EMTs rush into the house at the same time. The EMTs get right to business. The doctor seems a little hesitant. Even I could tell this in the midst of my contractions. Poor man was probably wondering why he got picked for this job of all doctors at the two clinics in our town. But he takes on look at me and says, "She's complete and the baby is crowning." I ask if I can push, and he says yes.

At 10:28 am, our little girl is born on our living room floor, witnessed by me, Buddy, Dan, a doctor whom I had never met before, another first responder, two EMTs, the police chief, and my mom (she was going back and forth between checking on the kids in the van and checking on things on the house. And the kids were happily oblivious in the van during the delivery.) The EMTs got the baby crying right away, and I got to hold her for a minute. A couple minutes after her birth, the ambulance from the hospital arrives with not just one OB nurse, but two OB nurses and another doctor (who had just delivered another baby and was still in the OB department when the call for the ambulance came, so he decided to go along in case he was needed). The nurses cared for the baby, the doctors and EMTs cared for me, and they got us ready to go in the ambulance back to the hospital. My dad had arrived by this point, and he and my mom brought the kids back in so they could see their new sister before we left. So now there were 19 people in our living room. :)

The baby and I were put in the ambulance, and Buddy gathered things together to follow us in the van. When the EMTs got me out the door on the stretcher, I almost laughed at the chaos outside. There were two ambulances with lights flashing (one parked right in the middle of our street), two police cars with lights flashing (one directing traffic away from our street), the vehicle belonging to a first responder with lights flashing, our van, my mom's van, Buddy's car, my dad's car, and a garbage truck.

Once we get to the hospital, things proceed normally. For those of you who like to know these things, at birth (well, once we got to the hospital) she weighed 8 pounds and 8 ounces and was 22 inches long.

Did I forget anything? I will post some more pictures later, but I'm sorry to say we don't have any pictures from the action at the house. Not enough time to think of taking any or to take any if we had thought of it, although we wish we would have been able to.

I have told the story rather "matter-of-fact", but I was not as calm as it sounds. I did pray (out loud) a number of times for God to give me wisdom about when to call Buddy to come and what to do, and I know He did--even giving me clarity of mind to have my mom call the ambulance when she did. People have asked me if I was scared. I was a little scared before my mom arrived--just the fear that the baby would come and I'd be alone with the kids. But once another adult was there and especially once the medical staff started arriving, I didn't fear for the baby or myself. Part of this was because I was in heavy labor. You other women who have been through labor know that you don't really have much ability to think of anything but your contractions at this point. Another part of the lack of fear may have been knowing my sisters had both had babies at home (planned), so even though we weren't prepared for it, I knew it could be done without problems.

I said I would share some of the things I was thankful for through the labor and delivery, but I think I will do that in another post since this one is already very long. For now I will just say I am so thankful to God for giving us a safe delivery and a healthy baby. I realize we were not prepared for something to go wrong like a hospital would be prepared or a planned home-birth would be prepared. I'm thankful for His protection.