"I think so. We'd like to have at least one more," I told her. "I'd really like to have a little girl."
"I'll make her a blanket," Nonna promised.
My grandmother called me later to inform me that Nonna had finished the blanket. "And you'd better have a little girl next, because it is PINK!"
Fast forward to almost a year later, when we found out that we actually were having the little girl we dreamed would join our family. We all said that it must have been the influence of "the blanket". Whatever it was, we couldn't wait to meet our baby girl. Grandma mailed the pink blanket to us.
It IS pink.
Fast forward again: We were getting closer and closer to baby girl's due date, and I was getting more and more miserable. I don't know what it was, but I was much more uncomfortable with baby #3 than I was with either of the boys. I couldn't sleep at night, I was in constant pain; it was not fun to say the least. At one point I forced myself into "nesting mode" by buying baby clothes and having Ryan get all the baby gear out of the garage. I wanted her to come early. I didn't think I could make it to November 6th, her due date. Both of my boys were late, and as far as I could tell their sister would be, too.
On the 27th I went in to my OB for my routine appointment. I was 38.5 weeks pregnant. Dr. Klingler examined me to see how far along I had progressed. I wasn't too hopeful, as I hadn't had a single "real" contraction.
"Holy cow," he said at one point.
Not what you want to hear during a cervical exam, know what I mean?
"You haven't had any contractions?"
I repeated that I hadn't.
It turned out that even without contractions, my cervix had dilated 8cm (out of the 10 you need to deliver a baby). Dr. Klingler removed his gloves.
"You need to go to the hospital. I've never seen anyone progress this far who wasn't in active labor. If you don't go to the hospital you are in real danger of delivering at home."
Now, some people might not mind that, and that's great for them, but I fall firmly on the side of having babies in hospitals. So I called my friend Hannah, who is also my visiting teacher and one of my counselors in the Primary presidency, and told her what was happening. She agreed to head right over to my house to stay with Benjy while I got my stuff in order and got my about-to-have-a-baby butt to the hospital. Because she is my hero.
Ryan and I got ready, packing our bags and eating lunch. We even stopped by Sam's school to let him know what was happening and that Hannah would be home when he got off the bus. When we finally strolled into the hospital, a nurse hurried down to Admitting with a wheelchair.
"We thought you really were having the baby at home!" she gasped.
"No, just getting our stuff ready."
She looked me over. "You're not in labor."
"Nope."
"We thought you were! They told us you were eight centimeters!"
"Well, I am, but I'm not in labor."
She set the wheelchair aside. "I guess we don't need this, then."
All dressed up and... nothing to do.
We waited for the on call OB to check on me. Ryan finished a paper for his UW class. I got on Twitter. At one point I demanded that Ryan get a bag of potato chips for me, which I ate in secret while the nurse was out of the room. We watched Monday Night Football.
At 6:15 Dr. Bragg examined me and broke my water. That's all it took for the contractions to start. I tried to go "zen" and breathe through them. It mostly worked until I hit 10cm and needed to push. Then I got a little crazy with regret that I had not opted for the epidural. Some "words" may have been said.
Both boys had large heads at birth (who am I kidding, Ben still has a giant noggin), which required two hours of pushing. But this little girl came into the world after about 15 minutes. Total labor time: 2 hours exactly from breaking my water to birth. It was worth not getting the epidural.
Amelia Rose Reynolds, born on Nonna's 92nd birthday.
