The Birth Story

On this, the day my baby hits double digits, I thought I would share the story of how J came into the world.

Before you panic that I’m going to talk about how long it took me to dilate, relax.  The actual having J part was pretty boring.  But there was a bit of a comedy of errors getting it all going.

The day before J’s birthday is my Mother’s birthday, which was also my due date.  I had my Mother, my Sister and her two youngsters: the Princess and C Man, over for some dinner and cupcakes.  It was just about eight o’clock when we decided to wrap things up.  I got up off the couch to walk them all to the door.  That was when my water broke all over our white couch.

My family commenced removing the layers of winter gear they had finally managed to wrangle the children into, and went to work.  Since it was my due date I, of course, had nothing packed or ready to go.  My sister followed me upstairs to get some clothes and stuff together (I’m still a bit unsure as to what you’re supposed to pack) while my Mom got on the phone and made arrangements for me to get the good room at the hospital.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, “Where is the DH during all this madness?”  Well, he would be at a bar.  I had no idea which bar, and if I remember correctly, his cell phone was sitting on the kitchen counter.  That or it was off, but either way, he was unreachable.  Because every father-to-be goes out on his expectant wife’s due date without any way to be reached, right?

This causes a slight wrinkle.  You see, back when we were young and didn’t have kids in hand, the DH would sometimes get a little over-served when he went out after work.  We could have left him a note on the counter telling him where we were, but there was the chance he would be too out of it to see the note, or too blitzed to notice I wasn’t in the bed.

The only solution was to have someone wait for him.  But my father was at a golf banquet and all of my friends lived out in Downers Grove.  Bring on the neighbors!  We called next store and Merle sat in my living room until my Dad got there.

Bag in hand, my mother put the niece and nephew in her car, and my Sister got behind the wheel of my Tahoe for the drive to Hinsdale.  Now, if you have never met my sister, you wouldn’t know that driving is not her favorite sport.  As a spectator, yes.  As a driver, no.  Up until that fateful night she had never driven anything larger than a 4 door sub compact.  Now I was unleashing her on the world in a full sized SUV with a (finally) contracting sister in the passenger seat.  No pressure.  We took surface streets all the way to Hinsdale, drove around until we found three empty parking spaces next to each other, and went to the wrong door of the hospital.

Dad made it to my place, the DH not too far behind.  DH wanted to get in a quick shower before heading for the hospital.  My Dad’s response was a simple, yet apparently forceful enough to make the DH listen, “No.”.  So they piled into yet another car and soon he was relieving my rather exhausted sister at my bedside.

Not exactly the Norman Rockwell scene I had envisioned about my first baby’s birth…  but in the end the little wriggler came out (with a C Section and a little help from his Grandma the wonder nurse) and he was huge and happy and healthy.  And really, what else matters?

So Happy Birthday J!  You’ve livened things up with plenty of stories since, but your first is still my favorite.