A Baby Story: Making Peace with Pain

"I want to go to the hospital NOW."

Mr. T, who was kneeling at the side of our queen-sized bed, glanced at the mini yellow legal pad in his hand and then looked at me. "But, they're not close enough together."

I hobbled into the bathroom in pain once again, and when I came out, I announced: "There was blood."

Mr. T ran downstairs to retreive the instruction card on who to call when in labor.

I waited.

My thoughts swirled. An hour ago, I was watching a "Seinfeld" re-run. Now, I felt like I was going to die...at least every 5 minutes or so.

After he returned, I panted out the situation to the ER nurse. She seemed bored with me. Annoyed, even. "Yeah, come in; we'll check you."

I pulled on my most comfy maternity jeans and ducked into my favorite oversized WSU t-shirt while Mr. T let the dogs out to potty in the back yard. I went downstairs, stopping once for a contraction, then grabbed a couple of old towels from the laundry room before sliding into the Odyssey. I sat in the garage waiting for Mr. T.

I felt surprisingly calm in between pain-induced moans.

It was almost midnight, and the streets were shiny black from the rain earlier in the evening. I willed stoplights as to turn green as we approached intersections, and with each piercing contraction, I squirmed and squeezed the car door handle.

Mr. T pulled the minivan up to the emergency entrance and tossed the keys to the valet. He ran around to help me toward the the ER. Outside in front of the electronic sliding door, a woman was on her knees and hunched over, a fuzzy cream blanket draped across her shoulders. She was heaving into a construction bucket. I felt sorry for her.

Inside, a jovial police officer with pink cheeks gently sat me in a wheelchair and led us to a bed in one of the trauma rooms. The faces of the two nurses on duty were kind, but guarded. One of them had, "Stop being such a drama queen; you're probably here waaaaay too early," written on her forehead. But that changed when she checked me.

"Whoa! Well, you're not going home tonight!" She picked up a phone, "Seven CM and completely effaced. Yeah. Yeah. Okay."

Mr. T, eyes wide, said he'd run to get our luggage out of the van. "Be right back!"

I don't remember much about being moved to the maternity wing, just that I worried about how Mr. T would locate me when he came back to the ER and we were all gone.

I was 8 centimeters dilated by the time they wheeled me from one room to the other. I'll spare you the details of the rest of the night, because, well, they are quite boring...and I think I blocked a lot of it out. But, once I got the epidural, everything slowed down and T Junior wasn't born until about 10 in the morning.

May 27.

In a week, my baby will be one.

I have a feeling the day is going to be just as painful as it was a year ago.