The Birth Story - The Preface

At my original appointment in February when I first found out I was pregnant, they gave me a due date of November 1st. That seemed late to me based on when my all-day sickness kicked in, and at my ultrasound in June I was right, - the due date was pushed up to October 7th.

That kind of freaked me out. This pregnancy wasn't planned and I had one less month to mentally prep for the changes that were sure to come my way.

Well the summer, per usual, was freaking hot as heck, and since we don't turn on our A/C, so was our house. Our summer in Oregon doesn't truly start until late July, and lasts through most of September. I could not have planned worse timing if I tried on the pregnancy weather-wise.

Then mid-September the day I hit 36 weeks something fun happened - I was leaving a practice I'd just coached and was walking back to the parking lot. I stepped down a stair and rolled my right ankle. I literally was standing up then I was down on my knees, it happened incredibly fast. A couple women were near and rushed over. I assured them I was fine, usually when I turn my ankle it hurts intensely at first, then feels better once the shock of it wears off.

I drove home and once I got inside told S to get me some freaking ice because my ankle was killing me. When it was time to go to bed, I had to figure out some way to get from the couch to the bed. S offered to carry me, which was sweet, but at that point I was topping 180 lbs, which he quickly realized when he lifted me and said "OH MY GOSH". We made it about 10 ft, the dog started getting really excited and was jumping around us while S was trying not to throw out his back. I meanwhile was crying because I was laughing so hard at what a cluster everything was. I made him put me down for fear that he would drop me and I would hurt myself even worse, and he helped me to hobble to the bedroom.

Because of the pain of my ankle I could not get comfortable in bed, so I decided to make my way back out to the couch. Trying to put pressure on my ankle turned out to be extremely painful, and as I slowly shuffled down the hall I started crying, but I tried to keep it quiet so I wouldn't wake S. The dog, meanwhile, was in the living room and heard this crying moan and the thud-thump, thud-thump of me shuffling on my ankle and coming down the hall toward her. It was pitch black, and she had no idea who it was. As soon as I came into the room, she looks at me with fear and sprints away from me into the kitchen. I at that point transitioned from crying to laughing at the idea of my horrible guard dog imagining this moaning monster slowly coming down the hall to get her.

S wakes up at that point and helps me the rest of the way. Because I'm cheap, I wanted to wait a few days and make sure it was reeeallly injured before I went to spend time and money getting it looked at. The fall happened on a Wednesday, and by the time Monday rolled around I still couldn't put much weight on it. I guessed it was a high ankle sprain that might need to be booted.

Well turns out it wasn't a sprain, it was a break. A relatively clean break in the sense that nothing was displaced and I wouldn't need surgery to realign anything, which was good. The pain was minor as well so prescription pain killers weren't necessary. As far as breaks go, I was pretty fortunate.

I got casted and after one day of wearing crutches decided if I wanted to move at all during the next 6-weeks, I needed  a knee scooter to get me around. Let me tell you, Scoots gave me a new lease on life. Because I couldn't walk to try and induce labor, I scooted. All over Portland. We hit up Ikea on multiple occasions, which drew some strange looks. Apparently seeing a lady 9 months pregnant rolling around on a scooter while eating an ice cream cone in one hand isn't something you see everyday.Whatevs. When people commented on my bad luck of breaking my ankle, I always responded that at least it wasn't both ankles.

Before I went on my maternity leave, I still had to coach a weekend tournament with a broken ankle on Scoots. I coach 16 year olds so as I was scooting up to my pitcher and catcher to let them know what the game time was, I came down the hill toward them singing "They see me rollin', they hatin' patrolin' they tryin' to catch me ridin' diiirrty", which elicited some eye rolls from them. Let me tell you though, I think when faced with ridiculous circumstances like that, one is much better off to keep a good sense of humor about the whole thing.

With a week before my due date I started maternity leave - just from coaching though, not from answering my phone and doing scheduling stuff. Because I wanted to get paid and don't have PTO with this job, I knew I would have to work through my pregnancy and postpartum period - no rest for the weary is an understatement here.

October 7th came and went. As did October 14th. It did end up being a nice time of rest though. Every afternoon I would watch a Miss Marple episode on Netflix, but halfway through I would pause it, fall asleep for 2 hours, wake up and then finish it. It was absolutely cozy.

On October 17th they sent me to the hospital to do a stress test and check the amniotic fluid levels to see if they could let me go a full 42 weeks. Everything checked out so if natural birth didn't start on it's own, I had an induction date of October 20th.

I knew that this baby wasn't going to come without intervention. I did the whole eat-spicy-foods-scoot-around-have-lots-of-intimate-times stuff and nothing came even close to starting anything. So on October 20th, we packed our bags and took off to the hospital so we could try and pry this baby from my uterus.