henry's birth day eve

October 8th, was a Monday and I was scheduled to go see my doctor for my 40 week appointment.  An appointment I was sure I would never see.  I had just seen my doctor four days earlier and I was not happy to be heading to another appointment.  I wanted to be heading to the hospital in labor.  I had spent those four days between appointments emotionally and physically drained.  I cried to DJ on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Sunday I gave him a break and called my mom to cry.  Between a broken rib and an extra 30lbs on my tiny 5'2'' frame, saying I was uncomfortable is an understatement.  I walked in to the office and the nurse said, "You poor thing, we were sure you would have gone into labor over the weekend." 

I had arrived at the doctors office in my pajamas, no make up and my hair was still in a damp curly bun from my shower the night before.  My doctor came in and said that he had expected to see me over the weekend.  I told him that I honestly had to.  I then asked him if he could possibly try to strip my membranes again.  He had already done this twice, but he said he would try again.  He said I had dilated to 3cm (I had already been fully effaced for a week) and that he stripped my membranes but that the baby was not descending due to the fact that my pelvic bones were still very close together.  He then explained that one of two things would happen.  One, my son would be extremely cone-headed after he made his way out the birth canal.  Or two, I would be physically unable to push him out and I would likely need a c-section.  He wanted to induce me the following day so that if in-fact I needed a c-section he would be able to perform it for me.  I felt a lot of emotions that moment.  I knew I was going to finally meet my son the next day and that was the best news I could have heard, however I may have to have a c-section which scared me.  This was the one road I didn't want to go down.  It's not like I was thrilled to be induced and put on pitocin, (I had heard horror stories about the contractions that it produces) but I really didn't want to be cut open.  I was scheduled to be induced the following morning at 7am.  I called DJ first and told him what was going to happen, then I called my mom and texted my best friend.  They both asked me what I was going to do on my last day as a childless woman.   

After I left the office I headed to the grocery store to grab a few things, Target and then home to give my house a once over.  It had been so clean from my incessant nesting, it didn't need much in the way of cleaning.  I wanted desperately to take a nap but I was truthfully way too ecstatic and anxious.  My nerves about what may happen were far outweighed by my excitement to no longer be pregnant and to finally see this little human that I kept so safe inside of me for 40 long weeks.  Once DJ came home for work we decided that we would take our fur babies for a nice long walk.  They were going to be slightly neglected in the attention department for a little while so we wanted to spend some quality time with them.  We walked all through downtown Plymouth and it was a gorgeous fall day.  Not only was this the night before I was going to give birth to Hank, it was also his actual due date as well as our second wedding anniversary.  We went out for an anniversary dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant and then settled in to watch a little tv. 

Then we waited until it got dark out to do one last thing.  Ever since our wedding night, my mother-in-law has always bought DJ and I lanterns for special occasions.  For birthdays and anniversaries we write wishes and hopes on the outside of the lanterns and then we walk down to the park, light them and watch them until we finally can't see them.  This particular night we wrote wishes about baby Henry.  Luckily for us, all of our
wishes came true.

my stomach was ENORMOUS

 Come back tomorrow for Henry's birth story!!