Anna's Birth Story (aka that one time moving put me into labor)

When we officially sold our house and selected a closing date of May 8th, I had an overwhelming sense of anxiety that I was going to go into labor and not make it to the closing table. When people would ask when we were moving, I'd always say "May 8th... you know, 4 days before I'm due - no big deal right?' I had to joke about it in order to not go crazy, because inside I was terrified.

Well, 8:00am on Wednesday May 8th came - and surprise! Anna was still cooking inside, safe and sound! We closed on our first home and then just drove around for a little bit, because for a 3 hour period, we were "homeless." Then at 1:00, we closed on our new house, got the keys, and drove our moving trucks (yes, trucks) full of our crap over to our new place. 

Over the next few hours, we moved everything in to the house. I was 39.66 weeks pregnant, so obviously I was not moving anything heavy. A lamp here, a small box there. Despite everyone saying "Stop moving stuff! You're pregnant!" I couldn't just stand there. I was due in 4 days, and I needed evvvvvverything in it's place. I was all ready to paint and unpack it all before my due date.

Around 11:00pm, I finally, finally prepared for bed. After staging our previous house for 3 months, the one thing I was looking forward to most that night was sleeping in our glorious King sized bed for the first time since February. But before bed, I desperately wanted to take a warm bath to soak my overworked muscles. As I got ready for my bath, I looked at my pregnant belly in the bathroom mirror, and Jon and I both noticed how low it was. Like super low. And I said to Jon "Huh, that's kinda funny. My belly dropped. Wonder if that means anything?" 

So naturally, I turned to Dr. Google, and I read things along the lines of "In second pregnancies, when the stomach 'drops' labor is imminent." 

Oh no no no, I thought. I'm not ready to go into labor! I have so much to do! But I wasn't having any contractions, so I figured I was fine. So I just closed my eyes to go to sleep.

Until about 20 minutes after I laid down, and bam! There they were. 

My OB's office gave us instructions to come to labor and delivery once my contractions were 7-8 minutes apart. Within an hour, we were at 8 minutes, so we woke my mom (who thankfully was staying with us that night) and told her she might need to get up with Emerson in the morning. At this point, even though I was having regular contractions, I just had this feeling they were going to send me home. I figured it'd be hours and hours and hours before Anna was ready to be born.

We got to triage, they hooked me up to monitors, and essentially said, yep, you're in labor, you're definitely having contractions (duh) but I hadn't progressed enough yet. So they had me walk around the hospital FOR AN HOUR whilst contracting to get things moving. If any of you out there have experienced contractions, real ones, you know walking is not an option when they start to intensify. I had to stop every 7 minutes, squeeze Jon's shoulder, and breathe through it before I could resume walking. After 60 long, long minutes, I went back to triage. I hadn't dilated any more, and my contractions were still only 7 minutes apart, so they told me to go home, try to rest (riiiiight) and come back when they were closer to 5-7 minutes apart. I wanted to tell the nice nurse "Um, hello? They currently are 7 minutes apart so do I really have to leave?" but even in pain I can't be mean to people, especially tired nurses on the overnight shift. So we were discharged and made the 35 minute drive back home.

I got back in bed, and the contractions started getting really bad. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep, so around 7:30am I went downstairs. My mom was up with Emerson, and I wanted to snuggle with my little girl for the last time before our lives changed forever. 

I swear to you, by the time I reached the bottom stair, shit got real. There was no way I was going back to that hospital until I knew they wouldn't turn me away, but I could barely breathe because they had gotten so bad. Sweet Emerson could sense something was wrong with mommy, and she seemed scared. She crawled into my lap, but the contractions were so close together at that point I couldn't even hold her. Because I was in so much pain, I wasn't keeping track of how close together the contractions were, but my mom counted. 3 minutes apart at that point. Um, time to get Jon and get back to the hospital NOW!

To be continued...