Preparations

Well, it will probably take me a few posts, but I am going to write about the birth and baby process. So, here goes...

At our doctor's appointment on August 4th, the doctor told us I needed to be induced on Thursday, August 7, 2008. This was due to my blood pressure getting higher and higher and symptoms of pre-eclampsia getting worse and worse. I was so excited that I couldn't even contain myself. Although it would be considered early (38 weeks), a baby is considered full term by then and should not have to stay in the hospital any extra time. Dr. Hill also said that I should not work the rest of the week and I should lay around the house until Thursday morning. So, I was given my orders: show up at 5:15 Thursday morning and have baby!

That gave Asa and I three full days pretty much to make sure everything was ready to go. After calling all the people we needed to to inform them of the news, we headed to Windhill where I had to break the news to Carrie. I told her I would stay for the rest of Monday and help train the new girl that would be taking my spot temporarily. I spent the day explaining things to her and printing up the last minutes things that I needed to get done. I was so excited when I left! Don't get me wrong, I love working at Windhill, but just put me one step closer to meeting my baby!

Monday night and Tuesday morning were pretty much a blur. I made tons of lists and ordered Asa around as to what he was supposed to be doing. We ran errands that needed to be done, cleaned the house a little bit, and talked a lot about what was about to happen. We both couldn't wait. On Tuesday evening we went on our last date as non-parents. We went to Union Cafe and ate a huge meal, including dessert. We went to Kroger to pick up the issue of People Magazine with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins in it. We ran into Hunter Chambers there, who I had been wanting to see. It was really fun to see his reaction to my belly since he had not seen me since December. We hung out at home for a little while before I had the idea to go walk around WalMart thinking it might put me into labor. I walked for about an hour, but nothing happened.

Wednesday, the day before the induction, was full of cleaning and anything else I could think of. We completely cleaned everything! Our house looked so good once it was all over! Asa even shampooed the carpet. In the afternoon we took Kima to her new temporary home at Noah-Beth's house. I was really sad to take her, once we got there I felt a lot better when I saw how much fun she was having with Annie. After that, my mom was going to a party at Alyx's house for the field trip they had just gone on. She invited Asa and I to come over and hang out in the pool. We accepted and it turned out to a lot of fun even though we did not go on the field trip. We swam around for a while (hoping it might put me into labor) and Asa jumped off Alyx's roof into the pool! After we had had our fun, we went to WalMart again to get some last minute things. Still no labor. We probably stayed up until about 1:30 am simply because we were too excited to sleep. I was so emotional and cried a few times over nothing. There were so many things I wanted to think about and talk about, but at the same time I just wanted to relax with Asa. We finished packing everything and set two alarms (for 4:15 and 4:20) before we finally went to sleep.