The Day A Scar Was Born Part I

   HAPPY CONTRACTIONS 
          I have been planning on writing a birth story entry for quite some time now.  My favorite stories that my mom told us growing up were about the weird stuff my dad did when they were dating and about how each of us was born.  I took her labor stories for granted until I was pregnant.  During those 9 months I sucked the wisdom and advice out of that woman. I figured I was genetically prone to have a similar experience with baby birthing, and turns out I was right.  Except for the "I always had my babies two weeks early" part. But Scarlett wasn't late, so it's cool.
          I'm purrrretty sure some little contraction guys started the night of Brian graduation day, Friday the 26th.  I remember waking up during the night with some unusual back aching, but I was so exhausted from a busy night shift at the hospital that I slept on and didn't think on it. That next morning, I was scheduled to take a certification class, CPR: For the Healthcare Professional. Sounds professional, right?

Brian got his Bachelor's in Chemistry and wore his new bow tie. I wore a big belly and a swollen face.

          That morning when I woke up at around 8:00 AM, I told Brian I was feeling "weird things".  Could this be labor pains?! My stomach (and under...ahem) felt tight and achy for a few seconds, stopped, and started again.  We started timing them that morning, but they were quite sporadic so we agreed that I should just go to my four hour training and come home if they resumed and became closer together.  So I skip-hop-drove to work, hoping for a baby today, but expecting at least another two weeks of being pregnant. 
          I probably seemed quite distracted and pretty rude at the CPR training.  I kept looking at the clock and texting Brian to tell him what my progress was.  Luckily the training only lasted about two hours instead of the allotted five they had planned. My contractions were 10 minutes apart for the last hour. When we started to practice on the CPR manikins, a co-worker tattled that I was due for child-bearing the next day.  So ironically, the two RNs teaching the class decided it was best that I only do rescue breaths and no compressions.  "We don't want you going into labor," they said.  Naturally, I kept quiet because I didn't want to get sent home just to have to come back another time to receive my CPR cert. 
          Brian sounded anxious in his text replies, and suggested that I leave early.  But I felt like I could make it to Ogden in time to have a baby it the contractions got really close. After we took our written exam (I passed), everyone wished me good luck.  I told them that was probably headed to the hospital today.  The nurses were like "Woah! Can you make it home ok? Do you need someone to drive you?"  I said I was good.  They still seemed a little worried until they found out it was my first baby.   I suppose it is common knowledge that the maiden voyage out of the birth canal is a long one.
          I was cheerful on my way home because the contractions were still happening. I tried to do car crunches to start new ones, and it worked. They were quite mild, but strong enough to stop my breath for a minute. Brian had gone out for what he thought would be his last meal until we had our girl-child, which was a large Carl's Jr six dollar burger and fries. Classic Brian food.
          I got home around 11:15 AM and ate some spaghetti and Ragu. Apparently, you're not supposed to eat while you're in labor, but I didn't know or care and I'm glad I did. Then we decided to take a walk outside. It was perfect weather.  I notified Brian of the beginning and end of each contraction, "here's one," and he kept track of the time and duration. After about half an hour of walking we decided we should hit the hospital.
         We grabbed our bags, drove to McKay and sauntered on in through the ER around 1:30 PM. Having this baby was going to be easy peasy lemon squeezy, as one of our past 8 year-old Primary kids would have said. We told the ER clerk that we were having a baby, so I was whisked into a wheelchair and pushed into the special elevator up to the L&D floor.
        We got registered and I was invited to wear a beautiful hospital gown.  It took me FOREVER to figure out how to put it on.  Eventually I just peeked out the door partially uncovered and asked my husband to help a brother out. We were assigned to one of the rooms, because Triage was full of laboring mommies. While I was laying down on the bed waiting for the nurse my contractions started to slow down and diminish.  So I started jumping up and down around the room.  I know I looked really cool doing it.

 And now so do you.  Wow, I must be very secure with myself to be sharing such explicit footage.
      The nurse came in and hooked me up to little pink and blue belts to monitor the contractions and baby's heartbeat. Then she did the deed and measured my cervix dilation to be about 1 & 1/2 cm.  For those who don't know, full dilation to allow baby's exit is 10 cm. As we expected, we were sent home.  The nurse told us to come in when contractions hurt so much I'd like to wring Brian's neck, at about 2 to 3 minutes apart and occurring for about 3 hours.  So we returned home and planned to enjoy the evening and try to be patient.