So there we were, sitting in the living room after a long movie night hanging out with our friends here in McNeal when we started feeling sick. Yup, both of us at about the same time were feeling pretty sick. Since our trailer only has one bathroom Brian took a walk to another building on the property to “hang out” in its facilities while Bailey stayed home and dealt with her sickness.At first we thought we had the same thing. It wouldn’t be the first time we ate something that made both of us sick. When things settled down for a little while we found ourselves back in the living room (now around 12:30am). Neither of us felt better, but it was a calm in the storm. We started comparing notes to try and figure out if we were feeling the same way, and what it might be.
Bailey said, “Does it seem like you feel bad about every ten minutes? And now, it hurts about every four minutes…actually I wonder if I am having contractions”
Alarms went off in my head as I began to realize with Bailey that we were feeling very different things! How could she know what it feels like when she had never in her pregnancy had a contraction before? I grabbed the phone and called our good friend, Jane, who thinks giving birth is a beautiful thing ( I don’t). It was now 2am and she was wide awake. She knew we had to be calling to tell her that Bailey was going into labor.
I asked her what she thought of the urgency of the situation and she gave me no encouragement. “Brian, I don’t mean to scare you, but with my kids when it got down to four minutes apart, it was time to start pushing! Do you want me to ride to the hospital just in case she needs to push on the way there?”
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I don’t remember the conversation or much that occurred after that, but Bailey and I were in the car by 2:30am and I was thankful for the effort we had put into making sure the car had at least a half tank of gas in it. We had a one hour drive across the desert to get to the hospital. Which, by the way, is the nearest hospital!
Jane didn’t come along, but it was a scary drive to say the least. I was looking at every tumbleweed that passed by in our headlights as a possible place to throw up, and Bailey was having her breath and speech robbed from her every four minutes by increasing pains. It was quite a miserable drive!
We made it to the ER and Bailey sat down, and I checked in. As soon as I was done, and it was time for Bailey to sign papers, I ran to the bathroom! And so it was for the next 3 1/2 hours. Bailey would reach a lull, and Brian would run to the bathroom. It didn’t help that we were placed in triage until 7am when office hours for our doctor began.
In triage we were not lonely. Oh no, we had lots of company. Each bed was separated by only a curtain and enough room between the beds for the Holy Spirit. Of course, the other people who came in were screamers and pukers. So Brian made a few bonus trips to the bathroom as a result.
It was a long and stressful night, but by 11:45am Bailey was pushing, and before noon she had to stop pushing for ten minutes because the doctor didn’t anticipate that it would be so fast. When the doctor arrived, it was only a few more minutes and we had a beautiful, screaming baby girl.
Our parents arrived early that afternoon from California. We called them on the way to the hospital, and they went to “code red” and were on the road before we ever got to the hospital! It was hard to believe they made it so fast.
I finally started to feel better later that night, but what I felt was nothing compared to what Bailey went through. She was amazing! In the midst of all the pain, and screamers in triage, she was still considerate of everyone around her, and was worried about me! I was personally hoping that somewhere there was a monster buried in her that would come out during labor, but I guess she really is pure “sweetheart” all the way to the core.