The Story of Parker's Birth - Part one - Pre-Labor

(So I was going to write this out twice. A super detailed one for my records, and a less detailed one for all inquireing minds on here. But that is way to much work and time. So this will be the full on story with everything I can remember. Feel free to skim, skip, read, or not, it will be rather long. But I know there are a few people who want to know every detail so here you go! )

Part One - Pre-Labor

Monday, March 2^nd was a rough day for me. It started out fine, aside from the pains of being almost 40 weeks pregnant. I went to work and got a lot done, but was pretty antsy for my appointment that afternoon. I had imagined that I had made so much progress and was positive they would tell me I was dilated to at least 3cm. So I showed up at the doctors and to my disappointment, I was pretty much where I was last week. Still only 1 cm and 80% effaced. He also hadn’t dropped very much either. The doctor wanted me to schedule an ultrasound ASAP so we could have a better idea of how big this baby really was. We set it up for Wednesday. I came home and just cried all afternoon. I was physically exhausted and just didn’t think I could take it anymore. Having to schedule my next appointment which was after my due date almost killed me.

After a good cry, I decided to go out and get a few more things for our little dude. I had coupons and was excited to use them until I got to the places I was going and realized I had left one at home and the other didn’t start until next week. I know this is not a big deal in the slightest, but just piling that on top of my already rough day, I just wanted to start crying all over again. I decided to go look around anyway, just to cheer myself up a little. I went into Joann’s who of course was having lots of sales, so I was almost immediately cheered up. I was originally going to get some fabric to make my own Moby Wrap. Unfortunately, that material wasn’t on sale, but I found tons of cute fabric on super sale so I got some to finish up some burp cloths I’m working on. I also wondered to the other side of the store and got some stickers that were also on super sale. Stickers ALWAYS cheer me up.

While I was walking around, I felt a mini gush of liquid. My original thought was that it was my water breaking, but it didn’t seem to be enough for that to be the case. So I just kept wandering and decided that I would just check it out when I got home. Well, these small gushes happened a couple more times, so I decided to head home. On the way I wanted to pick up some Primrose Oil, they say it helps to ripen the cervix. I bought it and headed home for dinner and then FHE with the Marquez. We ate something simple, I was definitely to the point where I just did not care anymore. I didn’t want to cook, clean, or really do anything for that matter. My body was just physically exhausted, not to mention this particular day my back was killing me! I didn’t think much of it because I was so huge. Everyone always asked if my back hurt and they were shocked when I said it didn’t. So I just figured that my body was finally giving in to the pain and pressure.

FHE was at our house this week and so Danny and Janneke came over about 8:00. I made pudding cake because I had been craving it for a couple of weeks and finally had the time to do it. Jeff gave an awesome lesson based on a forum given at BYU recently. The speaker was Aurther Brooks, although not a member of the church gave an awesome talk. He spoke about how giving actually makes us richer. Anyway, it was a good lesson. Needles to say, I was uncomfortable the whole time. After about an hour, Danny and Janneke left. I decided to call my mother-in-law and ask her about this gushing I had felt to see if it had anything to do with labor. She said that she had actually experienced the same thing with one of the boys. She encouraged me to just wait till morning since I never had a major gush, otherwise they might send me back home. And then she said, plus if you aren’t in pain, I would just wait. Then I explained that my lower back had been killing me all day. And then she said, o lady, you are going into labor. It was helpful to talk to her and get some advice and to just know what it was.

So after more debate, I decided to call the doctor to see what he suggested. It is about 9:30 pm at this point. The doctor that was on call was Dr. Rees who had actually seen me that morning. Kind of funny because we both thought it would be a while before this baby would come. He said that I should come in. So I hung up the phone, packed the bags, and headed out the door. Pretty soon after I hung up the phone contractions started and were less than 5 mins apart. This was indeed the real deal!! We were both excited and shocked at the same time. Were we ready for this? I guess we had to be! And off we went to the hospital.