Sitting, Waiting, Wishing...

SO... Things in my world have been a little more exciting than normal the past few days! Becca found out she was 3cm dilated as of Wednesday! Her full story about that is here.

So many emotions have been running through me I have hardly been able to keep up. It literally has taken effect on my body, I'm so out of whack. Never have I felt so many things at once!

I don't think my male biological makeup was originally designed to compute so much all at once... got a couple fuses blowing at this point, but I'm holding!

Yesterday Becca began having cramping and contractions from about 4:45am on. So by 12:45pm we decided to call the OB and get some wisdom. After all, we haven't exactly done this before... ALL the doctors were out of the office in L&D doing deliveries... so we were advised to go to the hospital! We packed our bags while the rain began to pour in buckets, and arrived at the hospital about 10 minutes later. Before checking in, we made a pit stop at the bathroom, and Becca came out with more news... the mucus plug came out. Ok. Breathe. This is happening NOW?! Alizah is almost 3 weeks early!

Here we go...

We checked in, and for some mysterious reason the receptionist recognized Rebecca's name... apparently someone other than our immediate family had been given some heads up??? Turns out after deciding NOT going into work due to the series of events unfolding before us, my co-workers had been trying to find out what was up! Because it's a new job and there's a roomful of new acquaintances, nobody actually had my number, and all managerial staff who did have my number were not authorized to solicit it. Until I found all this out later, we were both quite puzzled by who the mystery caller to the hospital was.

So upon arrival in L&D, we were placed in a waiting room.

"Yes, hi. My wife is in labor, we need to be seen." 

 "Ok sir, all our rooms are FULL and we'll have to seat you here until we can find space for you."

What?! Didn't expect that one... great. Ok, no problem. Relax. Surely we'll be accommodated soon. Is Becca ok? How can I comfort you and help? Don't talk to you or touch you? Ok. I can try and do that. Where is the nurse? There's another 2 pregnant women in here too?! Oh boy...

Such is my brain, whilst my beloved is totally focused on relaxing and working through the discomfort and pain.

20 minutes later, we are placed in a L&D room with spare equipment and a scatter brained nurse. She was sweet, but it was obvious she was a bit overwhelmed. After a little trial and error, she got Becca hooked up to a monitor and the imminent waiting game began.

I need to mention here my first experience in assisting someone dress in a hospital gown...

Have you seen these things? It's a funky shaped sheet with snap buttons and strings tied on... and no instruction manual! It's Macgyver time folks. On a time crunch too, because the subject in question is your beautiful, wonderful, uncomfortable and VERY pregnant wife... and the nurse is due to walk back in at any given second.

Needless to say, though it was not a first attempt success, mission accomplished.

So after a 30 second meeting of our doctor for the day who was in a flurry of OR getup, since our OB was out of town... more waiting. It was a cool thing being there, seeing Becca in that bed and seeing the monitor with Alizah's heartbeat... Surreal, but a precious beginning moment in the adventure of our first labor and birth.
The doctor came back in after a C-section and surely on her way to another, and checked out Becca.

3cm and 70% effaced. 

She then advised us to head home, as Becca had not progressed much and they were obviously very busy.

That was discouraging. We'd gotten really excited that it was happening now... but we're still getting somewhere! So we've had a lovely day today being out and about and helping get that baby to come ASAP! Lot's of love and support from our family and friends, we're very blessed and very excited to meet our little one!

More to come, both in words and family members!!