Friday night Cory and I went out to dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday. A certain member of our group was also celebrating her last nauseous meal – at full term in her pregnancy and having been sick the entire 9 months, she was being induced the next morning. Side note: the bonus about throwing up seventeen times a day for the duration of your pregnancy is that you hardly gain any weight. At full gestation, my friend Jill looked like me after a single visit to Claim Jumper.
Dinner began pleasantly enough – the selection of an Irish Pub in downtown Denver was chosen by the birthday boy, and we noted the loud band erupting from the drunk side of the restaurant as we perused our menus. After making my selection I regarded the quote written on my placemat which said, “I spent 90 percent of my money on wine and women. The rest I squandered.” Ha! The Irish are funny. Lushes, and kinda trampy, but funny! Minutes after the waitress took our order, Jill got up to use the restroom. You know, the place where pregnant women go to pay their 2nd mortgages? Upon her return she sat for a second, politely listened in on our conversation before discovering a break and announced, “Ummm…I think my water just broke in the bathroom.” Then, (just like in the movies!) she was hit by a hard contraction where her mouth opened wide and she braced herself with one hand while grasping at her belly with the other until it passed.
It is relevant to note that Jill is a seasoned veteran in childbirth, having already given birth three times to THREE BOYS, and the longest of her previous labors only lasted two hours. Two. Hours.
“CHECK PLEASE!!!”
Our waitress didn’t handle the news well. Her eyes enlarged the size of silver dollars, but she dutifully retrieved enough ‘to go’ containers for us to take our food on the road and threw them at us with the check. Jill opened her container and grabbed a fork to dig in. I was like, “Helllloooo! We sorta need to get you to a hospital!” “Yeah?” she replied. “Well I’m starving and once I get there they won’t feed me anything, so I’M EATING!” We let her shove a few bites down and then forced her out of the booth. As we got up to leave I clapped my hands together, “This is so cool! We’re having a baby!” I shot the waitress a final glance and said, “We’ll send you an announcement!” and we rushed out the door to head to the hospital. Jason will tell you that he was more concerned about Jill than he was about the leather seats in his Acura, and it might be true, but it didn’t stop us from pillaging the trunks of our vehicles for towels. Jason discovered a wimpy golf towel, Erik struck gold while heralding his beach towel find. Erik wins!
What started out as a birthday dinner turned into Girl’s Night Out in the maternity ward. The guys (except hubby of course) watched football in the waiting area until deciding to go home and rescue the babysitters, and I ran home to get Jill’s essentials: clothes, contact solution, laptop, canasta cards….
Quick history lesson: When Jill gave birth to her 3rd son, she had been told all along via various ultrasounds that she was having a girl. “Paint the room pink!” the doctor told her. So she did. We had a huge baby shower where all shades of Pepto Bismol were displayed and many frilly outfits were given. So when she delivered and they announced, “It’s A Boy!” she was unprepared, and grew concerned that the pink dress she brought to take the baby home in might not be appropriate. So this time, they decided not to find out and just assumed they were having another boy.
When labor started getting crazy and transition set in, my friends and I turned to leave when Jill said, “You guys can stay if you want, just stand behind the curtain!” Was she for real? “Are you sure?” we asked. “Positive,” was her response. We couldn’t have been more excited. We were silent, not wanting to disrupt the intensity or intimacy happening on the other side of the curtain. Jill’s husband was relentless in his pursuits to encourage her, “You’re doing so good sweetie, you’re almost there, I love you, he’s almost here….” Finally we heard cries, and the nurse said, “Well Dad, you wanna tell her what it is?” Through elated chuckles he managed, “Honey, it’s a GIRL!!”
My friends and I jumped up and down and hugged each other like a bunch of 11-year-olds at a Hannah Montana concert and made plans to go shopping. Miraculously, we stayed quiet until hubby announced that it was okay for us to part the curtain for a look. She is beautiful – lots of dark hair and straight from heaven. Awesome!
Her other boys spent the night at our house, and they were all clear on their orders for another baby brother. Their oldest said to his mom on the phone, “And uh, just please don’t let it be a sister.” The middle child liked the names “Francois” or “DJ” for his new brother, and the youngest, when asked before the baby was born if he would like a sister replied without fail, “No no”, as he shook his finger in the air, “I git a baby brudder.” So I was a little nervous taking them to the hospital to meet their sister for the first time. Mom and Dad didn’t tell them the sex of the baby until they arrived at the hospital so they could capture the moment on video. With a bow firmly attached to her head, mom introduced the boys to their new sibling. “It’s a girl?” the middle child mused. “Yep,” mom answered. And without hesitation they went nuts. “She’s so CUTE mom! Can I hold her? Look at her little toes! Can I call her Sarah? Awwww, look at her mom!”
I about died at how cute the older brothers were being with their new sister. The 3-year-old, however, was more like, “Who’s that kid on my mom’s lap and why is she commanding all of my mom’s attention? The very least you people could do is give me some candy.” But since his vocabulary is limited, he grabbed our hands and tried to get us to let him leave the room. He’ll come around. In the meantime, mom and baby are doing well and coming home today. And I gotta say, BEST DATE NIGHT EVER.
P.S. In a stroke of incredible good fortune, one of my friends had grabbed a camera at the last second on her way out the door and shoved it in her purse. Way to go Michelle!
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Lisa says: The waitress should have ripped up your check! What a great birth story! (I tried to get my sister to break her water at the Police concert--hello, great story to tell your kid--but she went into labor in the middle of the night hours AFTER the concert, at home--boring!) How are you going to top THAT date night?