The Birth of William Brawford: Part Two

Get caught up:

{Part One}

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Saturday morning also dawned a bright one. I could tell from a quick glance that it was cold, but at least it was bright, with plenty of sun streaming in through the windows across our bedroom.

As I woke up slowly to the sound of Evelyn calling, “Mommy! Daddy!” across the monitor, a vision of warm, syrupy pancakes popped into my head.

“Yummm,” I thought.

And then, “You know what? Ashley and Drew are here, I bet everyone would really enjoy some pancakes. I am going to get up and make a big ol’ family breakfast. What a great Saturday morning.”

I told my sleepy husband of my intentions and climbed out of bed – only to be hit by a pesky contraction. I glanced at the clock, it was about 7:45. Husband glanced at me stopping mid-movement and said, “You ok?”

Since I had been having contractions on and off for two weeks or so, I replied, “Yeah, just another contraction. We shall see.”

And with that I headed to Ev’s room to give her a kiss and a hug, hit the bathroom, then waddled on downstairs to whip up some breakfast.

While mixing and flipping those cakes, I had two more contractions. A didn’t seem all that disturbed and when I sort of mentioned that we might be headed towards having a baby today, I could tell that he didn’t really believe me. To tell the truth at that point I didn’t know if I believed me, either so I chuckled inwardly at this whole “your life could change at any moment and you have no control over it” feeling.

We had been so sure that this was IT the previous Sunday, and then it wasn’t. I kept talking myself in and out of it. I had been asleep for the majority of the beginning of labor with Evelyn, so, what did I know? They certainly weren’t consistent. Did they feel like “real” contractions? I couldn’t really remember if they felt like this before. I was, however, starting to get suspicious.

We sat down to breakfast and at one point while eating I literally had to stand up to lean over the table and breathe through my fourth contraction of the day. That’s when it hit me – this was indeed for real.

I was still intent on taking it easy, not freaking everyone out in a frenzy of “Baby Time!” so, I sat down and finished my breakfast, assuring the staring faces around me that all was well.

By the time breakfast was over, I asked A to go ahead and text his sister to let her know she should probably be on stand by to head down from Richmond – that was about 9:30. I had experienced about 5 contractions that demanded my attention, but I was still talking through them, too. They were sort of intense, but not terrible. Also, they were all like right at my cervix. Like all of the pressure and fleeting “pain” (as it wasn’t really painful yet) were pinpointed to one spot.

See, here’s the thing that in both of my births has been stuck in my head…in birth class we learned that one of the differentiations between “real” and “practice” contractions was that real contractions sort of radiate from back to front. Yet, both times I have been in labor, I have gotten to good active labor before I truly believe it because I am forever telling myself, “Sure this hurts, but is it radiating from back to front? No? Then it’s probably not for real.”

Well, I am here to tell you folks that I have never in either of my births felt a contraction radiate from back to front – so turns out you can have “real” contractions without that little phenomenon. Even after I didn’t feel that with Ev, I still thought that it must be true when in labor this go round. I also couldn’t really pinpoint a beginning and an end of contractions, so again, I told myself that we were really early on in this process, and to not get too excited yet. Strange, but true.

At this point, breakfast was over and we were all just sort of hanging out. I sat on my birth ball for a while, and A watched TV, glancing at me every time I made a little face. I could tell he thought maybe I was for real in labor, but he didn’t truly believe it yet. I couldn’t really stand sitting around, so I got up and started hanging pictures. I know. I am a crazy person.

(Sidenote – all those pictures totally need to be rehung because I did a really slapdash job with them. I just couldn’t stand the idea that they not get hung before I brought this baby home. Thank goodness I used Command Strips and wasn’t putting a bajillion holes in our walls.)

As I toiled away at stupid menial straightening and organizing tasks, I started formulating a plan for the day. We would need to call Oma Lori, Austin’s stepmom, who was going to take care of Ev for us. I would need to make sure Evelyn had her bags together. I thought we still had plenty of time; after all we weren’t even timing contractions yet.

So, I kept puttering around taking care of things while my husband looked at me with what he thought was well-veiled skepticism, but I saw right through him.  That man did not think we were having a baby. But he was content to let me be productive, while he relaxed, so he wasn’t about to say anything.

I handed the receipt for Ev’s “Big Girl” shirt to my sister – she was getting ready to head to a matinee on a little double date – and explained that I may need her to pick that up for me before the day was out. She definitely took me a lot more seriously than my husband did at the time. I may have even caught an eye roll from him out of the corner of my vision, as I impressed upon her the importance of not losing said receipt.

By 10:30 I convinced everyone that it was time to start timing these things because they were getting pretty damn close together, and by 10:40 we had texted Lori to let her know that "Baby Time" was more than likely going to be today. They were a minute long and 8, no 7, and pretty soon 6 minutes apart.

And as someone certainly started taking me a bit more seriously after those ten minutes, we put Evelyn down for an early nap as I continued to piece together the things I would need to have a baby.

Evelyn Rae is 20 months, Liam is 5 weeks old

...and I feel like I should be honest and tell you that I haven't quite finished this thing yet, so I don't know if it will only have 5 parts.