Triage is for Babies

I guess I'm a baby. On Sunday night, after taking 3 semi-serious outdoor walks throughout the day, I started having real contractions. I definitely thought something was truly finally happening. I tried to go to bed at 9:30 to see if I could sleep through them or at least get a little rest, but that was to no avail. Jeff started timing them (after we argued about who had downloaded the better *** mobile contraction time app on our phones...he won) around 10:30 p.m. By midnight, we realized they were coming pretty fast, some even only 2 minutes apart. I got up and showered and let the hot water beat on my lower back. We keep timing them and they were averaging about 45-50 seconds each, and coming just about 5 minutes apart. From everything we've read and been told, that's go time.

shaving and packing his daddy-o bag

So Jeff shaves and drinks his carnation instant breakfast (at 1:30 a.m. - does this really surprise you?).

And we go. All the way down to Dallas to our hospital about 23 miles away. We got there a little before 2:00 a.m. We go through the admission process and are then escorted to triage.....dreaded triage.

During our childbirth class at the hospital a few months ago, MaryAnn, our instructor, gave us a tour of the labor & delivery area of the hospital. As she pointed out triage, she said to our group, "You do NOT want to end up sitting in triage." She then proceeded to say throughout the entire 6-hour course to stay home and labor as long as possible before going to the hospital.

Sounds so freaking easy. ***

When my contractions hit that point on Sunday night where they were averaging the right length for the right amount of time, we thought we better get a move on it. I was declared 1 whole centimeter dilated at my last doctor appointment a week ago, so surely the week wait and 4 hours of steady contractions meant things were happening. Not to mention I was 4 days past my due date. I wasn't risking a home delivery.

I'm checked when we get to the hospital and I'm still only 1 measly centimeter dilated. And my contractions have tapered off and lost their steam. Awesome. The nurse tells us to walk for 40 minutes, come back and be hooked up to the monitors for 20 minutes, walk another 40 minutes, monitor for 20, and then she'll check me again.

We dutifully do as we're told, and walk the deserted hospital hallways for the full 40 minutes - both times. Since you're *** reading this post, you can guess what happened when she checked my progress after those long, boring, quiet, incredibly tiring middle of the night walks up and down hallways. Still only 1 centimeter.

She sent us home a little after 5:00 a.m. We didn't make it out of triage. We drove back in near silence, exhausted and defeated. No baby. I curled up on the couch and Jeff went to bed. I miraculously slept for nearly an hour before my contractions just wouldn't let me sleep any longer. Jeff was able to sleep for a few hours, and stayed home from work. We had a doctor appointment at 10:30 a.m. this morning, so we packed up all of our bags and headed all the way back down to the hospital for our appointment. We told him what was going on, he checked my progress again (still 1 centimeter dilated), and he offered me a sleeping pill.

I took his instructions, and somehow the sleeping pill worked. I woke up only about 3 times an hour to deal with a really painful contraction, and then passed back out. I think the pill also made me a little drunk, because I *** responded to Ali's text messages when she asked about the sleeping pill saying, "doc said nighty night today so i can push this melon out later gator." This was about 2 hours into my medically induced sleep. I also made a comment about the nurse trying to choke me with her progress checks (no need to elaborate there) before sending my "happy ass" home.

Ali checked *** on me later tonight and I assured her I had sobered up. I hope Baby didn't get a little sleep-bombed like I did. Yikes.

Anywho, I'll be walking laps throughout our house for the rest of the evening, stopping only to deal with the particularly dreadful contraction. Jeff has called it a night and is trying to get some sleep. He's been a trooper, and must be exhausted from walking all those hospital laps last night and then coming back to work from home for the rest of the afternoon.

Praying for seriously intense contractions as this labor thing is starting to last a loooong time. ***

Mar

*** just for fun, i put in these asterisks each time i had a contraction while typing.

Armadillos and spiders and lizards, oh my...

This morning Jeff and I are doing random cleaning because this baby is still inside my belly. I’m 3 days away from the due date and can only prepare so much. Let’s get on with it, Baby.

We’re in the nursery and I spy two more of those tiny little brown spidees along the bottom of the wall. We’ve noticed them every so often along the baseboards since we moved into our new house. They appear to be harmless and are super tiny, so I haven’t gotten too outta whack about them. Although Jeff may say differently, because I keep telling him he’s got to do something about them. I don’t like the thought of any size spiders in our house. Yuck-o duck-o. He flushes them for me.

Baby room: spidee-free

Then we wander outside to check out Jeff’s landscaping and to see if the zillion begonias he planted are truly starting to die. They’ve been beat up by the heat in the past month. We quickly notice that there are holes dug all over our mulch, and even some begonias have been completely uprooted and strewn about. We’re bewildered, and I start getting a little bit panicky about what kind of animal was roaming around our house last night. We notice the holes are all over and Jeff starts to get p-o’d. Big time.

He immediately goes to the garage to get his shovel and whatever other landscaping things he uses, and is down in the dirt before I know it re-planting and probably silently cussing to himself as he isn’t saying much. I ask, “Dog?” and he grunts, “Maybe. That or an armadillo or something.”

Armadillo?? WTH? Did he just pick a random Texan animal out of his butt and decide to freak me out by suggesting a dinosaur-like animal is creeping around our house?? Don’t even get me started on dinosaurs….

So my belly and I go inside to the AC and I start googling. Of course I do. I first look up a picture of an armadillo to make sure I’m thinking of the right animal. I am. Holy mother.....nasty.

Dang 'dillo

Then I google all sorts of things about “holes” “mulch” “animals” “landscaping” “ruin” and “armadillos.” What do I find? That it’s probably (most likely 100%) a freaking armadillo! Holy moses. I can’t handle this. After reading about how to get rid of them, I learn the best thing to do is “Get a gun.” Seriously. That was the one recurring answer posted by fellow Texans. Next to that, suggestions were to try cayenne pepper and coyote pee. Yep, coyote pee. People say it’s expensive to buy over the internet, so to just use your own pee instead. Hmmm.

I immediately think we need to call our friend Tony in Indiana and offer him a buddy pass ASAP to get down here, stake out the ‘dillo at night, and shoot the damn thing (and there better only be one and not an entire dinosaur-armadillo family feasting in our front yard). He was out shooting squirrels in his back yard just the other day, so I’m sure he’d be game for a ‘dillo attack mission.

I go outside to tell Jeff what I’ve learned. I’m impressed he even thought of an armadillo, and we talk about what we should try to do. As I’m standing on the path leading to our front door, I see a neon green lizard go scurrying across the front stoop. No freaking joke. It was probably 5-6 inches long and scooted right into the mulch. Unbelievable. “Awesome,” I say to Jeff who’s still packing in dirt around the broken begonias, “a freaking green lizard just ran by our front door.” I’m so disturbed about the whole ‘dillo situation that I don’t even freak about the lizard. And trust me, normally I would freak. Jeff responds, “hm,” or some noise to that effect. He’s preoccupied.

Dear Jesus, help me. (not the actual lizard, but very similar)

When we moved into our house in May, we noticed two lizards in our garage the very first day. They scurried somewhere toward the backyard. Then about 2 weeks later, I went to get our mail and a lizard slithered along the brick and behind our mailbox (which happens to be right up at our door). Total freak outs both times. I couldn’t run into the house and slam the door fast enough. Today, either the giant baby in my belly or the armadillo invasion (or combo) has made me completely indifferent toward seeing a lizard a foot away from the door of my house. This is not me.

When Jeff is done re-planting, we talk inside about what to do. We decide chili powder (since we don’t have cayenne) and our own urine (since we don’t have any coyote pee). Good timing, since I’m peeing upwards of 10-12 times a day. I grab the giant Dickey’s BBQ plastic cup, and Jeff grabs the chili powder. Then he says he’s going to mix them together. ????. Gross, but whatever. I don’t care what he does as long as the ‘dillos are gone. So, you can only imagine what took place next and now we’ll wait and see what happens tomorrow morning.

Taking care of business

During this saga, Jeff stopped and looked at me and said, “What did the ‘dillo do? Just walk down the street last night and decide to stop in our yard? I mean what the hell, we live in a neighborhood surrounded by other houses.”  I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought. Then he says, “Well if I catch the damn thing, maybe I can take it to the Fort Worth Stockyards and have boots made out of it.” Only in Texas.

That ‘dillo better stay away from my baby. (I can’t help but think of the dingo baby…)

I’m hoping my sister doesn’t read this post, since she’ll probably re-think her trip down here in a couple of weeks. I haven’t even mentioned the black snake in the middle of street a few weeks ago….

Soon-to-be-a-true-Texan-mama

Bombs Over Baghdad

I’ve felt like a ticking time bomb for the past two weeks or so. I can’t get the Outkast song B.O.B. out of my head – I wake up with that crazy song in my head and it comes and goes throughout the day. Sometimes I think having the insane beat pulsing through my body is enough to make me go into labor.

Our house after the painting and planting

I’m just about 1 week away from my due date, and I’ve completely neglected this blog. So much has happened over the past couple of months. We bought our first house – yay! Jeff has been crazy busy trying to get the landscaping in shape. He’s spent every weekend out there in the Texas heat planting, mulching, mowing, trimming, fertilizing, watering – you name it. It looks sooo much better than when we first saw it on that cloudy morning in March.

We’ve unpacked, put together a crib, dresser and bookcase for the nursery, ordered a kitchen table, purchased new appliances, installed a tv, had the exterior house trim painted, and even attended childbirth and breastfeeding classes. Our weekends have been busy to say the least. I’ve managed to squeeze in pool time just about every Saturday and Sunday though, which has felt incredible on my ever-expanding belly. I could float for hours.

We’ve also been showered with tons of baby love. My sister, sister-in-law and aunt threw the most amazing and perfect baby shower in Fort Wayne way back in April. It was awesome, and it was so great to see all of my girlfriends and all of their babies.



Aunt Steph and me

Onesie from Aunt Colleen

Katie is very excited to have a baby cousin

Baby's not a true Texan without some cowboy boots!

We were even showered at both of our jobs. The food, decorations and amount of gifts at each was completely overwhelming. We haven’t even lived in Texas for a year (and I’ve only worked at my new job for about 5 months) and everyone has been so generous!

Now we’re in waiting mode. I still feel really good and don’t have any big complaints. Sure, my leg veins are still nasty and sleep is starting to get uncomfortable, but it pales in comparison to my first trimester.

I’ve given Jeff two tasks in preparation for D-Day:

1. Know how to get to the hospital. We moved so far away from where I’ll be delivering, that it’s almost comical. Almost. If I have to tell him which highway to turn on or where to go at any point during our 30+ minute drive (and that would be if we’re driving there at 2am on a Tuesday), I will go bonkers. He knows this, and I’ve caught him looking at maps and alternate routes. Whew.

2. Create my music playlist for the hospital. I want all my favs loaded and ready on our iPad. When I tell you what songs I’ve chosen, you might ask, “Mary, umm, you’re not delivering at Tao in Vegas.” I realize pushing will not feel like clubbing, but I want the option of feeling like I’m at a dance party. So, Jeff made me the most bomb-ass music playlist EVER. I tell my girlfriends at work that we could burn this thing to cds and sell it. Preggo women would love it. Artists include: Pitbull, Nicki Minaj, Britney Spears, Usher (God, I love Usher), Flo Rida, Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, etc. He even threw in a few Adele songs because I just love Adele. We’ll see if I ever feel like listening to any of these songs, or if I just end up grunting and moaning at him in one quick breath to “turn-that-crap-off-before-I-die-from-a-heart-attack-of-pain-all-over-and-put-on-some-calming-ocean-enya-music.” God, please no Enya at this birth.

Speaking of Enya, I’ve had women at work ask if I’m going to try going natural or have an epidural. I give them the crazy eye and quickly ask, “Do I look like a hippie?? I’m getting the drugs.” It’s a pretty safe statement to say in Texas. They get it and appreciate it.

I’ve also become the office freak show. Apparently my department hasn’t seen a pregnant woman in years, so I’ve been getting a lot of attention. One has come in the form of an attorney asking to take my picture to send to his fiancé because he didn’t realize how big I’ve actually gotten. I sweetly stood up from my desk and obliged, but am plotting a way to get back at him at some point…

When people come to my desk to ask a question, I’ve noticed that their eyes gape and some have even gasped when I swivel around in my chair to face them. My belly must just be hanging out there like a tumor.

And most recently, everyone who sees me asks, “You’re still here??” Yes, I’m still walking (I don’t think I waddle, but maybe I am) into work each morning. When they ask when my last day is, I reply, “When you drive me to the hospital because my water just broke at work.” Some laugh, some get nervous.

38 weeks and kickin'

It’s been a pretty exciting nine months and I think we’re actually ready for Baby to show up. We’ll keep you posted!

Mama-to-be