2.9.12 - 11:45pm Jenny wakes me up with, “I think my water broke!” I groggily look over at her and ask, “Are you sure?” “Yeah, pretty sure”, she says. “What time is it?” I ask her. “11:45”. “What? Uhg.” I had gotten about two and a half hours of sleep by this time, having gone to bed early to try and kick my oncoming head cold. “Did you call Katie?” Katie is our birthing companion, whom we took HypnoBirthing courses with months earlier. “I am going to now”, Jenny tells me. “Do you want to go to the hospital?” “No, let’s just see what happens. Go back to sleep.” I promptly fall back asleep, but hear her stirrings through dreams of a strange birth in which the baby is born in a tub and no one at the hospital cares. I hear snippets of a conversation on the phone, the tub water running, a hair dryer blowing, a shower, and repeatedly telling the dog, Dante, to go back to bed when he wined because Jenny was in a different room.

2.10.12 - 5:45am Jenny laid across the bed, obviously in pain and emotional. I asked her a few questions about how she felt, and how often her surges were. They were about 3 minutes apart. Hating to see my wife in pain, I decided we should go. “Let’s get going hun. Do we have everything ready?” “Everything is already in the car,” she tells me. I started to pack my computer and some cords, books and my baoding balls, put the dog in his kennel, grabbed the keys and we got into the car and started on our way to the hospital, texting work, friends and family as we went. Almost to the bottom of the mountain, Jenneys says, “Crap! I forgot the HypnoBirthing materials on the coffee table.” “Should we go back?” I ask. “Yeah, we better get them.” So we turned around at Manitou Springs and headed back to the house, about 25 minutes away at this point. When we get there, we grabbed the books and immediately headed back down the mountain pass.

On the way to the hospital, the morning sky was just amazing.

Sitting in traige the nurse (whose name was also Jenney, with wonderful sparkly shoes) tested dilation and for amniotic fluid but we were only a little over two centimeters and couldn’t find evidence of amniotic fluid. Katie, our birthing companion who was also our HypnoBirthing instructor arrived and we took a walk to the cafeteria. Going was slow as Jenney’s surges were pretty close together and she had to stop and hold onto me until they passed.

We got some breakfast and ate and then walked around the hospital for a while. An hour after sending us out for a walk we returned and re-tested. Still no fluid and still under four centimeters, which is the minimum dilation for admittance. So we walked again, found some steps, and walked all over the place. Another hour later, they decided we should go home since we apparently weren’t progressing. So Katie, Jenney and I all left.

We decided to go to the store, Costco, and walk around. My mother called and wanted an update so I gave her one and asked her about her own pregnancy with me. Jenney had a pretty nasty cold for the last three weeks, and the nurse had mentioned that the baby would have a bit of a boost because of Jenney’s anit-bodies, which could contribute to a very healthy immune system. I have always had an amazing immune system, about three times as strong as Jenney’s, so I asked my mom if she had a cold or anything of the sort while pregnant with me. She said she hadn’t, but that she has also always had a very strong immune system. It will be interesting to see how strong Viola’s will be.

Jenney was wearing her “I grow humans. What’s your superpower?” shirt as we walked around the store, and she got quite a few stares, and some comments about her shirt. However, after increased stares, and after standing still together after another surge, I took a good look at her shirt and realized that her left breast had leaked through on her shirt, causing a wet spot. I told her and she said, “No, I must have just leaned on something.” In any case, I’m sure we looked very white trash at this point and just wanted to leave the store, though I also thought it pretty funny.

We left the store and started heading back home, but the surges started coming more frequently again, and stronger, so we decided to instead stop at my friend John Ferris’s house. I felt bad just dropping by unannounced, but he had already mentioned that if we needed anything to just let him know. Plus I had been planning on working from his house that day, so I knew he would be home. John has a great little spare room in his finished basement, so we stopped, put a four pound bag of frozen berries that we had picked up at Costco in his freezer, and put on some relaxing music for Jenney in the spare room.

We stayed for about two hours when the surges started becoming more than Jenney could bare. After reading some HynoBirthing materials to her, and being unable to calm her, we decided to go back to the hospital. I called Katie and had her meet us there.

Back at the hospital, they checked Jenney again, but she still wasn’t admittable. And so we walked some more. Her contractions were very strong still, but without being far enough along, we had to just bear with it, walk for an hour, go back and get checked.

Finally, around 4:30 or 5pm, they decided we were far enough along to be admitted. I’m not sure if dilation was enough, or they could see that contractions just were not going to stop, and that they were still intense, but it was s huge relief to just be admitted to a room and know that we were going to be there until the birth.