Tuesday, December 15, 2009

525,600 Minutes

A year ago, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning-- nine months pregnant and unable to sleep, I headed down to our TV room, scanned the DVR and thought now is as good a time as any to watch It's a Wonderful Life. A movie I had sworn off watching when I was in 8th grade. Shortly after settling onto the couch, which is not an easy thing to do in the last stages of pregnancy, I heard the pitter patter of tiny girl feet coming down the stairs. At 3am I was not about to argue that she shouldn't be up and so she nestled in, as well as she could, next to me on the couch and the movie played on. Not even through the credits, I pushed (truly) Natalie off the couch and (as I remember it) calmly said, "It's time." I always thought pregnancy in television and movies was a little outlandish with women standing in a puddle of water, but apparently it can happen that way.

We changed into some clothing, called my mother-in-law to meet us at the hospital, and ventured into the quiet of the dark morning towards the hospital. Dan's only rule was that I was to make it to the hospital-- there would be no delivery in the car. He dropped me off at the check in, where I provided my information and from there I walked to another room to make sure that I was actually in labor...let me tell you, I was actually in labor. Twenty minutes later, I walked to the actual labor and delivery room and wouldn't you know that the same nurse who was with me for the start of my delivery with Natalie was with me again! My doctor was paged to come to the hospital as things were moving rather swiftly. But there was no time! I told the nurses it was time, and they scrambled to get the on call doctor there in time for the very quick delivery of my baby boy.

Happy First Birthday, Joey!

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