Sunday, July 13, 2008

The story - Part One

It was a pretty normal day. B-rad and i were heading out to the lake for one last weekend of camping.

I had spent the day running around picking up a few last things before we went out of town. I had my brother Willy Billy with me to do all my heavy lifting, on the condition that if he was my lacky i would buy him lunch. While standing in line at CrackDonald's, the lady at the register asked Willy Billy when i was due. "Is she about to pop?" i laughed. i get this all the time.

"Nope, i've got two more months"

the response to that is usually something along the lines of: You're SOOO big already!!! You poor thing.

after all the errands were run, i went home and loaded up the car with all the gear... and went to pick my husband up from work - straight on out to the lake we went.

The lake was about an hour and a half drive from home, we made good time - got to B-rad's cousin Nasty's trailer/campsite around supper. It was a scorcher. 34 degrees (93.2 F) with no sign of it getting any cooler. We walked (well, B-rad and Nasty walked and i waddled) down to the beach with our pool noodles and enjoyed a very refreshing, and very much needed dip in the water. i felt like i could have stayed there all day and never get out. but - i was hungry, so we went back to camp and had some supper.

At about that time, i started noticing that my back was starting to hurt. I figured it must have been from all the walking around i did, then the drive, then sitting in bad camp chairs. B-rad and Nasty decided to go out for a bit of night-fishing at around 8:30 and i opted out, saying my back was sore - i'm just gonna relax.

The back pain didn't seem to be getting any better no matter what chair i sat on, so i waddled my way into the trailer and had a little lie-down on the bed, hoping the pain would go away. It didn't. B-rad and Nasty returned from fishing around 10:30 and checked in on me. I was feeling pretty crappy by this point, and as i had been having Braxton Hicks earlier that week, when Nasty asked me what was wrong i said jokingly; "Oh, i'm just having contractions, that's all."

He panicked a bit: "What? Don't you have that baby in my trailer!"
"Nasty, my due date isn't for another two months!! i'm not going to have the baby today." (famous last words)

Some friends of ours were also up at the lake that weekend, so B-rad and Nasty left me to lay down and went to visit/drink with our friends.

in the trailer, i tried to sleep... but it didn't work out too well. Every time i'd just barely fall asleep i'd wake up thinking my back was ripping itself off my body. Half asleep and in pain, i was vaguely aware that this MIGHT be more than just a day of bad camp chairs.

B-rad returned around 2:00 am to find me still awake and breathing through some nasty back pains that were accompanied by what felt like really bad menstrual cramps. I'd never had a real contraction before, so i wasn't quite sure what was going on. But when B-rad came to bed he had the brains to say: "are they quite regular? maybe we should be timing these."

So, we started timing them. And the really really sucked. To keep me distracted, B-rad and i played the Band Name game, where one of us starts with "A" and thinks of a band name and then then next person has "B", etc etc etc. We went through the game 3 times - and moved from the trailer to the road, to the camp shower.

Finally, when it seemed like they were getting worse rather than better, around 3 am, we figured it was probably time to call our Doula, Sunava, just to see what she said.

So B-rad called, and woke her up and told her what was going on. We talked to her for about half an hour, she talked me through a few contractions, and when i finally told her that i felt a lot of pressure with the contractions, like i had to use the bathroom....y'know, number 2.... she went a little quiet, then said...

"Y'know, maybe you better just make the drive back to the city."

So, with the Return Home Order from our Doula, B-rad quickly packed up our stuff threw it all in the backseat of the car, stuck his head in the trailer to tell Nasty we were leaving, and we started the 1.5 hour drive back to the city with instructions to call Sunava once we were on our way to the hospital.

Now.
B-rad has been working 12 hour days at work all week, getting up every day at 5:00 am. And the night before - the lucky boy got laid ;) so he was running all that day on 4 hours of sleep. By the time we left the lake, he had been awake for almost 24 hours on 4 hours sleep... and it was just about dawn with that inbetween light, driving on country roads... with his pregnant wife in labour beside him who was in NO shape to keep him focused and awake on the road. ANNND, he had been drinking that day in the hot sun. *NOTE: He was by no means inebriated by the time we left - had he been we would have gotten someone else to drive us.

My sister in law lives in a small town on the way back to the City. i made the suggestion that we stop and pick her up and have her drive us to the hospital so B-rad could get a teeny bit of sleep anyway. After calling 5 times, my brother answered the phone.

"I need to talk to Pam!!" i said.
she picked up the phone and i said: "Hi Pam, how are you? sorry to wake you, but uhm, if we come and pick you up will you drive us to the Hospital?"

and she said; "....yes."

TO BE CONTINUED

5 comments:

Artful Kisser said...

The lake sounds divine (it's so cold here now). No wonder he wanted to come out early... Looking forward to the next instalment!

Mrs. Dymund said...

You embarked on a 90 minute journey on a SK highway while feeling the urge to push??!!???? I'm so glad I already know that everybody ends up okay. And I'm dying for the rest of the story.

Anonymous said...

You were making great use of understatement when you said it was an interesting story!

Anonymous said...

I am on the edge of my seat, girl. I can't wait to hear more. :)

Reesh said...

I have shivers of excitement and dread! Good thing you've told us the good news first so I can rest in peace until the next installment instead of wondering if you make it okay!

Your Ad Here