The craziest weekend...

Saturday morning started out with a trip over to Noel and Jennifer's to celebrate Elijah's 2nd birthday. His party was actually at 2pm, but I had plans so I couldn't attend the actual party. I visited with Jennifer and her mom and chatted about my pregnancy and need to get to the end of it. I told them both that I was “done” with the heat, the swelling and the non-fitting clothes. I joked that I was counting down to either 37 weeks or 75 degree days...for those not in Texas, it's been about 100 degrees for the past two months or so. That wreaks havoc on a pregnant woman.
I had somewhere to be at 12:30 so I raced out of the Wilcoxson household to the other side of town to attend our birthing class. I met Doug at the hospital where the class was held and prepared for a significant learning experience. The class was interesting, and I actually did learn quite a few things. At this point, I was determined to practice the breathing exercises in order to have a completely natural delivery. Well, leaving the hospital, I got a really severe pain in my lower abdomen which caught me off-guard but quickly subsided...whew!
Well, dinner Saturday night was great, and I got the usual few hours of sleep in between tossing and turning to find a comfortable position for my large belly.
Sunday morning I woke up with Ike bright and early – as usual – and just felt exhausted...I was tired. Doug and I hung around the house all day in the hopes of rejuvenating ourselves for our upcoming week. The hospital where we were scheduled to deliver conducts tours of the Labor and Delivery floor on Sundays at 5:30. So Doug and I mustered the energy to head over to the hospital and check it all out. The tour was quick and the nursing staff was very polite. Jennifer delivered Hannah at this hospital so we knew the facilities were nice and the food was good. But it sure helped us to see it for ourselves. We headed from the hospital over to Dillard's to purchase a couple suits for Doug. I walked over to Motherhood to get a new pair of black pants for my business meeting the next morning, but they were closed. I would have to figure something out for the next day since my other black pants were a bit too snug. After Dillard's, Doug and I went to Marie Calendar's for dinner and then on to he grocery store.
At the grocery store, I started to get strong contractions. This didn't really catch me off guard since I typically get contractions at the grocery store because of all of the standing/walking. Except this time, they were a tad bit painful, but I still wanted to get home and sit down to see if they persisted. So we checked out and headed home. Well, since I wanted to get to the couch as quickly as possible, I unloaded just a bag or two and sat down to relax. Doug continued to unload the gazillions of bags of groceries which I thoroughly appreciated! In an effort to get the front door open with both hands full of bags, Doug kicked the door open with his foot and somehow managed to get it just right so that the door hit the wall (actually a broken door stopper) and the locking mechanism of the door knob crushed into the knob itself...so it rendered our door knob useless...forget being able to get in or out of the front door for the night...man oh man!
So as I'm sitting on the couch, I feel just a few contractions, but then they seemed to stop...which was fine since I was only 35 weeks and 2 days along. Well, I just felt the need to call my mom and inquire about how she went into labor with my sisters and me. She told me that her water broke with Lindsay, she got contractions with me and that my older sister, Molly, was so long ago – tee hee – that she couldn't remember. So that didn't really help me since it was pretty much 50/50 whether I'd get contractions first or have my water break first, but the information was helpful nonetheless. So that phone call was at 10:30 pm CDT which was 11:30 for my parents. So with that information, I headed to bed since I had to be up at 5 am in order to be ready for my 9:30 meeting in Waco the next morning. Well, I got ready for bed and was able to finally get comfortable in bed with my Ike-a-Rama-Jama puppy. Well, it only took about 2 minutes and POP!!!! My water broke!!!!! Holy wow...this is not happening! So now I'm yelling Doug's name because I figured he was hanging out in the backyard with Frisco. So I yell for him once...nothing...twice – a little louder...nothing...a third time – even louder and I finally heard him respond. He came running in from the restroom and I told him what was going on. He was more shocked than me!
So he asks me,”What can I do for you? What do I need to do?” I tell him that I guess I need some towels since with every breath, I'm losing more and more fluid...sheesh! So he heads out to get me towels and then I hear him yelling and cursing at the front door since he can't get the door knob to cooperate...oh no...this is not happening! I guess he finally got it to work since he quickly returned with towels. So he's running around the house trying to figure out what to pack – since we were completely unprepared figuring we had at least a few more weeks if not the 4 ½ weeks until our due date of September 19th. Then Doug asks me what else I need...I look down and around and realize I don't have any bottoms on...I need to somehow “get dressed” while not having a barrier between my fluid and me...sheesh! So I tell him to grab the sarong I have in the bottom drawer in the closet. That's going to have to do. So we head out the broken door – Doug with a bag of random things and me in a sarong with a beach towel between my legs like a diaper...I'm sure glad it was 11:15 pm and not broad daylight. And before I even realize it, Doug is barreling down the freeway at 85 mph. I tell him that we really don't need to drive that fast as my contractions haven't started yet. He slows down temporarily but creeps back up to about 85 just a few minutes later.
We arrived at the hospital with no issues. The hospital is so new (opened in February) that you have to check in at the ER because they lock down the lobby of the hospital. I got checked in without too much of a hitch, and Doug wheeled me up to Labor and Delivery. They checked me into the L&D room that we saw on our tour just 6 hours earlier! How funny...
The delivery went well, and Colton Cash Ranney was born at 11:51 am on Monday, August 18th. He was born 7 pounds and 9 ounces and 20 inches long.
I'll try and get caught up on his progress since it has taken me almost 2 weeks to write this...sheesh!!