Basement Framing & A Baby Girl

Here's a fun story for you. On Thursday, December 22, I awoke w/ Braxton Hicks contractions. I wasn't too worried because I'd had them most mornings ever since going into the hospital on Thanksgiving weekend (32.5 weeks....regular contractions...dialated to a 5).  After about an hour I noticed that the contractions weren't going away. Instead they'd gotten a little more uncomfortable and were quite regular.  Nick and I wanted to go visit the lot before he had to go to work that afternoon, and I originally thought it might be good to let the contractions slow down before going.  I nixed that idea though, and at about 9 or 9:30 we headed out to see the latest work on the house - the framing of the basement! 

Nick, Cole, and I had a great time at the lot.  It was so very cool to see the beginning of the framing - made it feel like we actually had a real house being built.  We stayed for probably 20 minutes oohing and aahing over everything, then decided to head home.

By time we got home, my contractions were a lot closer together (still coming regularly) and were actually starting to move beyond the 'uncomfortable' point. Nick thought it would be good for me to just hang out on the couch until they went away, and I completely agreed. That idea didn't last long, because suddenly my contractions became quite a bit more painful.  I told Nick we needed to come up with a plan.  He was confused. A plan?  For what?  In case we need to go into the hospital, I told him.  He was still a little confused.  I began to explain again, thinking in my head that we needed to figure out what to do with Cole, but I couldn't finish - a really rough contraction hit me and I had to sit on the stairs and let it play out.  Suddenly Nick realized what was going on and insisted that we head over to the hospital.  I was happy to oblige.

Instead of jumping into the car right away, we carefully got together a bag of things for Cole - added some toys, made a peanut butter sandwich, etc - in case we ended up staying at the hospital for awhile.  About 5-10 minutes later we finally got into the car and took off.  Nick had me call his office to tell them he might not be in to work that day (I had to make it a really quick call in between contractions).  At that point, we were still pretty naive, not realizing that the birth of our baby girl was staring us in the face.

The drive to the hospital only took about 7 minutes, as usual, which was lucky, because after Nick dropped me off at the ER entrance, it was only about another 25 minutes before I'd had Maliya.  Yep, over and done with that quickly.  I'll post more details on our blog, but I have to say it was one of the craziest experiences ever!!  I can't get over the fact that I was at the lot less than two hours before giving birth.  Are we crazy or what?  (The lot was also the first place I visited after having Maliya. I think we're addicted.)  I'm just grateful that the Lord made up for our naivety and made sure I got to the hospital in time!

Here are a few pictures, taken on a very special day indeed.