Eviction Date

So here we are. Blog post #2. I’ve been writing this story for many months now, but I’ll start from the beginning. Thanks in advance for reading this, and any post from here on out.

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You know what’s super annoying – everyone giving advice to pregnant women, everyone. The UPS delivery man, the co-worker who’s never had children, parents, grandparents, in-laws, the vet, the person behind you in line at the grocery store. And there are thousands of books and blogs and apps out there.

I realize every birth story and pregnancy story is different. Mine isn’t mind-blowing, but it wasn’t easy either. It just was.

Getting pregnant is not as “fun” as all the sex-ed classes make it seem. And you really can’t get pregnant every time you have sex. It’s messy, you have to count days and check calendars and watch for ovulation. My husband had a few minutes of work to do, and then my body took over the 24/7 job of growing this tiny, tiny tadpole.

My pregnancy itself was fairly easy. My first trimester was dotted with terrible headaches that no pregnancy-friendly medicine could get rid of, my second trimester meant buying new clothes and new bras and new underwear (who knew my ass would get bigger?), and my third trimester was spent dealing with round ligament pain (aka lower back pain from gaining 40+ pounds in eight months) and cankles that would rival Fat Bastard. Truly I think I came out unscathed. We did the pre-baby class and labor class, assuming now that we watched a few videos and swaddled a fake baby that we’d be ready.

: That’s my girl – the day we found out she was a girl! The day my hubs decided he needed to start owning guns.

To say I wasn’t nervous would be a complete lie. I was nervous about my water breaking at work and having to drive the 40-minute commute to the hospital by myself. I was nervous that I wouldn’t pack the right things or that the construction we decided to do during my last trimester wouldn’t be done (and it wasn’t until the baby was eight weeks old). The crib took almost six weeks to get delivered. I reorganized the baby’s clothing about four different times. I kept the house spotless thinking every time I vacuumed, “this could be the last time I vacuum before the baby comes.” I was down to two pairs of shoes that fit, my Uggs and flip-flops. My husband tiptoed around my craziness and I went through a lot of peanut butter (my craving!). I was nervous we wouldn’t have enough money and I wouldn’t be able to take the full 12 weeks of FMLA (because, you know, maternity leave doesn’t really exist in America). D-Day couldn’t come soon enough.

At our 36 week ultrasound, they noticed the baby measured small. Our OB didn’t seem that concerned, telling us they can be off by one pound, but he still wanted to have another ultrasound at 38 weeks. So a few days after Christmas, in we went for our next ultrasound. The baby had barely grown! My husband started tearing up, so I started tearing up. I thought about everything I “shouldn’t” have done while pregnant. Was it the deli meat or the one glass of wine? I ruined our baby!

The ultrasound showed no reason for panic, except her lack of growth. The blood flow was great. The heartbeat was perfect. So they hooked me up to monitor to watch for contractions and heartbeat. And as soon as they rubbed that gel on my stomach and got the monitors at the right spot on my stomach, I decided I needed to poop, like really need to poop. So my husband had to track down the nurse to rip the monitors off and I ran down the hall, just barely making it. Oh, the joys of having a baby doing the Electric Slide in your uterus.

For the second time in ten minutes, I got hooked up to the monitor and actually got to watch the baby’s heartbeat and saw I was having tiny contractions. Next thing I knew, the nurse popped her head in and told us the hospital had a room available the following Monday. I nodded, not knowing what that meant. Then she explained they were going to inject Cervadil that Monday and induce me the morning after. “Wait, I’m having this baby next week?” My husband and I looked at each other. We were not ready to be parents. We were supposed to have another two weeks! But lo and behold, this baby was coming and now she had an eviction date – January 5, 2016.