In Honor of Labor Day

Thanks to my friend, Angie, I have been tagged to answer the following questions about my labor experience with Connor. Here we go...I'm sure you're all curious. It's quite a good story.

1. How did you know you were in labor? Woke up about 6am with some stomach pains off and on. It was a Saturday so Mark was home. I stayed in bed. He decided to get up about 7am and thaw the car off just in case--scraped the windows, warmed it up, etc. These tight muscle spazzes went on all morning and into the afternoon. After a while I figured that maybe we should time these things like they tell you to. So I started timing them with my kitchen timer. Every 5 to 13 minutes I would get up and walk around the house trying to ugghh with the pain, and they would go away. None of them were consistent (like they tell you they would get). Even though we were already 10 days overdue, we still weren't convinced that this was the real deal. The neighbor guy came over around 1:30pm to visit. He stayed for about an hour and decided it was funny that every few minutes I'd get up and ugghh around the couch in pain and then sit back down at the table and carry on a conversation. Finally around 3pm or so, I called to my Grandma's (where everyone was having Christmas that day) and talked to my Mom. Asked her what she thought....if we should go to town or what....since these pains still were not consistent. She said maybe to just go to town instead of sitting at home timing these things...maybe that would take my mind off of things. I called the hospital and they said that we should probably just wait until they were 5 minutes apart consistently. Forget that...we decided to venture to town since it's 30 minutes away. At least we would be in town if things started to progress rapidly. We were about 4 miles down the road and I had Mark stop the car at the stop sign so that I could get out and walk around the car. I walked around twice and I was ready to go again. He was worried I was gonna slip on the icy road. I just needed to walk. It felt better to walk off the pain. Onward we went again. We made it about another 10 miles to the first small town. We stopped again. This time I went into the bar and went to the bathroom. Onward again. Probably another 10 miles and we stopped at the gas station. I didn't get out. I stayed in the car reclining in my seat. Mark wanted to get a newspaper. Then into town we went. Now where do we go....Christmas shopping! First we went to Ron's Warehouse where I thought I did pretty well. Just every so often I would go into an empty aisle and ugghh over the cart and then VOILA! the pain was gone again. I think I went to the bathroom twice while we were in there. Then onto Kmart we went. Same thing there. To the bathroom two different times and ughhing over my cart in an empty aisle every so often. From there we were gonna go to Fleet Farm but on the way there decided that maybe I should probably eat something since I hadn't eaten much all day. So thru the Arby's drive thru we went. Figured a roast beef was probably better than a greasy burger. I laid reclined in my seat and while going up to the window Mark was questioning me whether I wanted to go to the hospital yet. Yeah, finally, maybe we should. He asked me whether we still had time to go across the street to McDonald's first since he wanted McDonald's. Yeah we could do that. I ate my sandwich on the drive to the hospital. We found a parking space in the lot and I started gathering my stuff and Mark asks, "Do I have time to eat my food?" Sure, eat your french fries and your double cheeseburger. After a few minutes I told him I was gonna venture in and get signed in or whatever and tell them the situation. I carried my duffle bag into the hospital and Mark came in a few minutes later after he was done eating. They found me a wheelchair and away we went. That was at about 7:00pm. Connor was born at 10:15pm.

2. How long was your labor? If you figure from 6am until 10pm -- then 16 hours.

3. Where did you deliver? Douglas County Hospital in Alexandria



4. Drugs? No drugs since we arrived too late and I was already at 7cm. Yep, this was the real deal. They did give me some drippy thing in an IV that was supposed to help, but it didn't. Just made me a little droggy.

5. C-Section? No

6. Who delivered? Dr Johnson. She is very nice and is still Connor's doctor today. Although on that day....she was at the movies with her family while we waited for her. It wasn't long after she arrived and Connor was born.



(Mark's cousin, Cindy, you have been tagged! You are next to add this gem to your blog. Have fun!)

Our happy boy