A house of company throughout the day, supper with Craig, Katherine, and Karis that evening was how Sunday, August 7th played out. The behind the scenes story was that my body was giving me signs of preparing for labour. I of course down played them thinking that if they are not like the book describes then it is probably worth being down played. By noon on Monday it seemed like a good time to call my OB's office and see what they thought... basically I was feeling like I should be wearing a diaper so really started to wonder if in fact my water had broken. Again as it was not as the book described I kept thinking that Seven was probably just belly flopping on my bladder and surely everything was intact and wanting to stay that way for a while longer.
The nurse at my OB's office suggested I head to the hospital to get checked out in the birthing unit triage just to be safe. I showed up at 1:20pm just in time to watch soap operas which were airing on the television in the waiting room as well as in real life in the waiting room. The tirage was quite busy so it was almost an hour and a half before the nurse had a bed available for me. Luckily I had my blackberry to keep myself busy and connected to the outside world, including postponing my lunch plans with Jenna, my friend from Huntsville, as I was pretty sure I'd be in and out in time to meet her at the mall and change those lunch plans to supper plans.
The nurse confirmed around 2pm that it wasn't my water that had broken, but before I could catch up with Jenna, the nurse wanted for me to see the Dr. Almost five and a half hours later the Dr confirmed that my water had in fact broken and I better call my husband as I would be leaving the hospital with a baby. Yeah, I was shocked. I may have actually cried as I was starving and so convinced that I had spent the day in the triage making a big deal out of nothing - exactly what I did not want to do.
It took a little while to convince Bryan that I was not joking and was being serious about how he needed to change his plans and come south from camp to the hospital, all while I devoured a sub in the food court.
Bryan arrived at the hospital around 10pm (thanks to help from our friend Amber) just as contractions began. I was spared the horrors of back labour so with Bryan's support I was able to focus and breathe through the contractions without much trouble. After a couple of hours of this fun the doors between life in the womb and life in the world were still quite shut. An epidural and a drip of pitocin to help induce labour was how the first few hours of Tuesday began. Seven had sets of heart decelerations that worried the Dr and nurse so we were monitored closely and I was prepped for a c-section. By 4:30am the decelerations had ceased and Seven seemed pretty content to work things out on his or her own terms and timing.
The Dr poped by for a last look at the print out of Seven's heart rate compared to my contractions and nicely said that I might have the baby before she finished her twenty-four hour shift at 8am. I thought that it was nice of her to say that but was quite convinced that we were in for a long day. Yada, yada, yada we discovered that Seven was a girl named Isabelle at 7:12am. Between the nursing staff change at 7am and the Dr being sound asleep as her shift was coming to a close, it was Bryan and a panicked nurse just starting her day that delivered the baby.
Plans change and we are certainly all right with that especially when it meant we could meet our daughter Isabelle Karen Marie... all six pounds and one ounce of her nineteen inch frame. Love grew that morning as did our family, and we have a feeling that is only the beginning of our plans changing.
