The Night Before

May 28, 2010

I think I have been putting off writing this post because I’m not sure where to start and what to say.  Life has been an emotional roller coaster since May 27th when I went into labor.  Our family has experienced joy, pain, anxiety, compassion, gratitude, relief, and many more feelings that I don’t have the words to describe.

Here is my best attempt to tell Karly’s story, I’ll post it in sections because I’m wordy!

I was scheduled to work my last stretch of nights Wednesday, May 26th thru Sunday, May 30th.  When I did my schedule I thought this would work out fine, giving me 18 days off before Karly’s c-section was scheduled.  On Tuesday I had a PALS class for work and as I sat in class I just wasn’t feeling well.  I was sweaty and light headed and about an hour into the class I called Dave and told him I wasn’t going to make it.  I really wanted to go home but the class is mandatory for work and is difficult to schedule so I stuck it out for the whole 8 hours and went straight to bed afterwards.  The next day I called in sick to work. 

Then Thursday morning I woke up having contractions. This had gotten somewhat common so I started drinking water and trying to relax.  Dave had worked the night before so I sent him to bed knowing that if today was the day he would need some rest first.  Michele was working from home that day so she kept me company while I waited for the contractions to stop.  And they did stop.  So, I headed upstairs to take a nap since I planned on going to work that night.  After all, I was only 35 weeks pregnant, the baby shouldn’t be coming yet!

I only slept about an hour before the contractions woke me up again.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  I knew the contractions weren’t strong enough to be true labor but I also knew I couldn’t go to work again.  I called the doctor’s office and had them write me a note taking me off work from that day forward.  Around 4:30 Michele and I went to pick up my doctor’s note and get the kids from the babysitter’s house.  My contractions continued.

After picking up the kids (this part is so ridiculous) Michele and I took them to Target to each pick out a gift for baby Karly.  We had promised them we would and if today was the day we needed those gifts!  At Target my contractions were getting worse and I had to stop walking a few times to get thru them.  We picked up a fast food dinner for the kids and headed home to wake Dave up for work. 

Once we got home a new kind of trouble started.  Noelle said she didn’t want to eat her dinner, if you know Noelle, saying she isn’t hungry is not common.  While we sat at the table and my contractions continued, Noelle headed upstairs to find her beloved blanket.  She soon returned without the blanket saying she had thrown up in her bedroom!

Stupidly, I sent Dave off to work saying that if I needed to head to the hospital during the night he could just come home then.  Noelle continued to throw up many, many times.  To her credit she did learn quickly to throw up into a bowl or run to the bathroom.  Thank goodness for small miracles!  My contractions continued and at about 10:30 I told Michele we should go to bed and get some rest because who knows what the next hours would bring.  About 30 minutes later I knew that it was time to go. 

We quickly packed a bag for Thomas and Noelle to spend the rest of the night at my mom’s house and called Dave to tell him to meet us at mom’s so we could head to St. Joseph’s together.