not what I was expecting...
If there is one thing that was true about my third pregnancy, it was that I knew what to expect. I knew I would wake up one morning with the realization that I was beginning labor. Throughout that day, I would labor at home, trying to relax, getting someone else to clean the house for me and gathering my things for the hospital. After supper, contractions would be close together and more intense, so my husband would drive us to the hospital. An epidural would take the edge off, and a few hours later I would hold my new baby. This is what I was expecting. What I was not expecting was to wake up two weeks before my due date, at 2:30 in the morning, with the worst cramps ever. Little did I know this was the beginning of one of the most unexpected experiences of my life.
When going to the bathroom didn't solve the problem of the cramps, I crawled into bed wondering what was going on with my body. I tentatively woke my husband to tell him I thought I was having contractions.
"Let's go back to sleep and see if they go away."
This actually didn't sound like a bad idea to me. As I mentioned, at two weeks before the due date this was not the labor I was expecting. Unfortunately, another strong contraction came before I could fall back to sleep.
"I'm having another contraction."
"I do not want to get out of bed to write this down!" In his defense, we were supposed to put our house on the market later that morning; we had spent the entire weekend scrubbing, painting, packing and cleaning. We had only been asleep for two hours because I was not expecting to be in labor already.
"I'm very sorry, but I'm having another contraction." By 4:00 a.m., my in-laws had been called, the suitcase had been hastily packed, my in-laws arrived, and we were driving far over the speed limit to the hospital. A security guard met us at the door with a wheelchair and brought us right up to "Labor and Delivery."
Immediately nurses began breaking down the bed, gathering the carts of sterile instruments and prepping the baby's table.
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