Baby Poppy’s Birth Story : Part One

In case you missed the official Facebook announcement, our little girl Poppy was born on Oct 27. This is a recap of her birth story. 

[P.S. Don’t miss future Facebook announcements. Join the community over on Facebook.]

On Monday, October 26th, I was making dinner. The kidlets and I had gone to Aldi’s in the morning and had picked up the last of the new baby stash of groceries. (Already this is too detailed…geeze Heffner get it together.) I was making Hubby’s favorite meal which is not my favorite meal at all.

And by the time I got finished making dinner, I was pretty sure I couldn’t eat it. The contractions were regular enough and intense enough that all I thought to myself was “I don’t want to throw this up later” but I still wasn’t thinking I was really in labor.

Even though I was 4 days past my due date, I still didn’t think it was real. I’ve never gone into labor on my own. And I was pretty sure I’d be hanging in till the bitter end of this pregnancy too.

So I sat at the dinner table with my family, not eating, just soaking in the family and the cute.

Hubby sent me out to walk and see what would happen. All the nights I had walked our driveway trying to talk labor into starting, I had an incredible pace, read books, talked on the phone. That chilly and rainy night (what birth story doesn’t include some wacky weather? You never hear “it was a glorious sunny day, 70 degrees, and perfect, and I went into labor…but I digress…) it took me 15 minutes to make it up to the barn.

I’m sure the scene the scene was dismal – me with a hood up, hunched over, slogging up the driveway to the barn. Actually, I know it was dismal because Hubby came outside, took one look at me, and then ran towards me like I needed CPR.

It was then that we decided we should put the babysitter on stand-by. The text said something vaguely similar to “I don’t want to get people very excited about this because I have no idea what going into labor actually feels like but are you free tonight in case this turns into something?” I know, I’m such a grown-up.

I came back in the house after two daunting trips to the barn and sat at my kitchen table, where the kids were continuing some scarecrow art we had started before dinner. And we cut and glued, and mommy had contractions. I sat there thinking “what kind of crazy person does cutting with toddlers/preschoolers while they are in labor?” and then I answered my own question with a smile – the kind of crazy person who welcomes these amazing blessings every 2 years, and loves every crazy minute of it.

The contractions got worse, we put the kids to bed reminding them that if babysitter was there in the morning, that meant our new baby was born, and I took a shower because I was sure the warm water would slow down the contractions since I still wasn’t even sure I was in labor.

Well, as it turns out I was wrong, and I called the babysitter who was on stand by again and asked if she’d rather come on over to spend the night or get called out of bed when we left for the hospital. She chose to come over and hang out with the sometimes-yelling pregnant lady.

I put in a classic movie from the 1999 high school movie scene (Drive Me Crazy – don’t be jealous) and watched that. And wouldn’t you know that then the contractions slowed down. Maybe it was our babysitter commenting on how OLD the movie was we were watching. Maybe it was folding laundry. I’ll blame the laundry.

So Hubby went to bed suggesting I call the midwife. And babysitter went to bed. And I thought to myself “I will feel like a humongous doofus if I rallied the troops and this baby doesn’t come.”

And I called the midwife who told me to call back when the contractions were 5 minutes apart for a half hour.

Labor had slowed down to the point that I was able to “sleep” in between contractions. Which I did, on the couch for a while and then when I realized they were even farther apart, I decided to go ahead and go to bed.

I woke up a few times after I went to bed. Nothing too crazy.

Then, BOOM. Crazy.

After contraction three at this level of crazy, I told Hubby I thought we should head out. I can’t say for sure what happened at this point. It all starts to get a little fuzzy. I think I had about 3 more contractions at home while Hubby rounded things up. If there was doubt about this being “it” that doubt was evaporating quickly.

Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion in Part Two.

 

 

 

 

The Scarecrow Project