The Doctor's Office **

My plan for Tuesday August 2nd looked like this:
Doctor at 10:30
Target and Babies R Us to make some returns and buy some still-needed baby items
Home to finish washing and putting away baby clothes

Here's what actually happened...

I got to the doctor a few minutes early for my 10:30 appointment and was still sitting in the waiting room at 11:30. I was pregnant, hormonal, irritable and TICKED OFF when they finally called me back. When the nurse told me my blood pressure was "a little high" I had to try really hard to keep myself from responding, "Ya think??" I wasn't too concerned. She told me to sit and relax for 10 minutes and she'd take it again and see what happened. Ten minutes later, it wasn't any lower and they decided to put me on the fetal monitors to make sure our baby girl was doing ok.

After a few minutes of monitoring, the midwife came in and told me that the baby looked great, but that my protein levels were high in addition to my high blood pressure. High blood pressure + high protein levels = preeclampsia. I really didn't know much about preeclampsia, so I was concerned but not too freaked out. Until she said, "Once preeclampsia starts it will continue to get worse until the baby is delivered. So it's time to have a baby."

Wait...what? Like today? Yep.

I asked if I could go home and get my things together and she said, "No I'm going to register you here and you're going to go right over and get checked in."

Then I started freaking out.

But honestly I was pretty impressed with myself for not totally losing it. I answered all the registration questions ("Are you planning on getting an epidural?" "Umm...I don't know I wasn't planning on being induced a week early..." "Who is your pediatrician?" "Umm...I hadn't chosen one quite yet." I was very helpful.) On my way out of the doctor's office, I called Jamie. No answer. I tried again, no answer. I think I deserve some sort of award for not losing it at this point. I called his office and spoke to the receptionist who told me Jamie was at a client's. Dang it. I tried his cell phone two more times and still no answer. And I STILL didn't freak out, thank you very much. I decided to call his office back and get the number for the client and call him there. But when I called, the receptionist told me they'd already reached him.

Here's how Jamie found out about the impending birth of his daughter. He was sitting in a meeting with a client at her office when her phone rang. She answered and this is what Jamie heard:
"Yes he's here....his wife's in labor?....ok I'll tell him."
He called me right away and I explained I was NOT in labor, but I was going to be soon! He of course left his meeting immediately and headed straight to the hospital.

In the meantime, I called my mom who was supposed to be arriving at 3:00 the next day. She had planned to fly in a full week before my due date so we could get some stuff done before the baby came. Obviously Anna was not waiting for her Nana. The doctor had told me the induction could take a while and I'd most likely deliver late on Wednesday or early on Thursday, so I told Mom she could change her flight, but she didn't have to. She did.

So with both Jamie and my mom on their way, I headed over the hospital to have this baby a whole lot earlier than I'd expected!


**This is a long story and I didn't figure anyone wanted to read a novel so I broke it into pieces. I decided the easiest way to do that would be by location. Tune in next time for the delivery room :-)