Twas the night before the night before Christmas…

It was a cold, windy night. The windchill was well below zero, and the snow from the day before was drifting over the roads. Baby J was preparing to his appearance, and I was denying it.

You see, he was due in January, and I was convinced he was going to come late. My husband and I had even “had a conversation” with the baby, to let him know that he couldn’t come on Thursday because it was snowing, or Friday because it was so cold, or Saturday or Sunday because we had Christmas plans. Spoiler: unborn babies are not very good listeners.

We probably still had two weeks until baby would be born. I was asked to help with music for our church’s Christmas services, and I didn’t think this would be a problem at all. We would go to church and celebrate Christmas and New years with our families, and in between and after the holidays we could finish getting baby stuff ready, and I might even have time to post a few a more blog posts. Right?

Sure, my doctor said the baby might be early, and I’d been having a lot of false labor, but the baby coming early would probably mean around New Years, or maybe right after Christmas, so we should probably make sure everything is set right after this weekend. The baby would certainly not come before Christmas. Still, I got the hospital bag ready earlier that week. Just in case.

On that Friday evening (December 23), my husband and I went to a music rehearsal for our church services. Someone asked my husband if he could do scripture reading on Sunday and he assured them that he could. “Well unless baby decides to come early and we have to abandon you all.” We all laughed at that. They asked if I had been having any braxton hicks (false labor) contractions recently. “Well, yes,” I replied. “But that’s pretty normal at 38 weeks.” I’m having them now, I thought, but didn’t add aloud.

We got home at about 8pm, and I told my husband I just didn’t feel good. How about some comfort food and a movie. No, I wasn’t in labor. I just didn’t feel great.

A couple hours–and a lot of taking deep breaths–later, I said that I thought I just needed to get my body to relax. I wanted to take a shower and then go to sleep. No, I’m not in labor, I think hot water and some rest will make it go away.

After laying in bed and not being able to sleep because contractions were coming every few minutes, I got up and walked around. I told my husband I was good, he could try to rest. I would just do some reading, and a few gentle exercises. I’m pretty sure it’s not real labor, fake contractions have kept me up before. Nothing to write (or text) home about.

Finally, at 12:30am on Christmas Eve, I told my husband, “I think it might be real, maybe we should call the hospital.” “I was just going to tell you the same thing,” he replied. He had been timing my contractions for a few hours and now they were five minutes apart and 30 to 45 seconds long. Despite all my denying, he had known I was in labor since we got home four and half hours before. He knew I would figure it out. 🙂

I called the hospital and talked to the OB nurse. I decided to labor at home for a little bit longer, and call again when we were coming in. At 2:30am I made the call. We finished getting things ready, and made the 20 minute drive to the hospital. Thankfully, the roads were not too bad, and the drive didn’t feel as long and awful as I thought it would. We got the hospital at about 3am and I got stuck right at the door with a contraction. The windchill outside was so cold, so I had been hoping and praying that we’d make it into the door. We did, but just barely.

I told the receptionist that I probably didn’t need a wheelchair, I could totally walk all the way back to OB. But, my husband convinced me that it would take far too long with how often I would have to stop, so they wheeled me back.

The nurse was excited we were there, and when she checked me, she found I was 7cm dilated (getting to the middle and end stages of labor!) so they put us in a room and called the doctor. My husband had intended to go back to the vehicle and grab our bags, but contractions were coming every couple minutes so I would have had to be without him. So the bags remained in the car until many hours later. We were glad we parked instead of just pulling up to the door like he’d originally planned.

The next four hours are somewhat a blur, but they didn’t feel as long as I thought they would. I was really glad I had done most of my labor at home, and maybe even glad I denied it for so long since it made the whole thing feel a lot shorter. The nurses and doctor were wonderful, and my husband was amazing. I felt so cared for and encouraged the whole time. I had about an hour and a half in the transition phase of labor, which I do think was the worst part. After transition, I pushed for about 2 hours before baby made his dramatic entrance (or exit?) a little after 7am. He didn’t want to come out slowly, headfirst, then shoulders, then everything else. Instead, he flew out all at once. Thankfully, they were ready to catch him. 🙂

They put him on my chest and I was sobbing and shaking and I kissed his slimy head and face and told my husband how perfect he was. My husband kissed me and held us both and I don’t remember much after that. He counted fingers and toes and cut the umbilical cord. And at some point the nurses swaddled him up and my husband messaged our families (most of who hadn’t yet seen the first text that we were at the hospital).

We slept most of the morning until our families came to visit that afternoon. While I was exhausted, I had a hard time putting any space between the baby and me, even in the bassinet right next to the bed. It was the farthest away from him I’d ever been. 🙂

Because he came a little early, we hadn’t completely decided on a name yet. Of course our families and everyone else was asking, but we wanted it to be just perfect. We were pretty sure we had a first name, but middle name took a little more time. But by the time our families came to visit, we had finally decided on the perfect name for our little Christmas gift from God.

Everyone was thrilled to meet him and my little sisters had to set a timer to make sure they all got fair turns holding him. Spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day in the hospital was a little weird, but our families brought some Christmas gifts to the hospital, and the hospital staff took great care of us. The cafeteria had a special Christmas dinner and everyone was so friendly, because who doesn’t love a Christmas baby?

When we got home, our family and friends continued to take wonderful care of all of us, so thank you for that! We’ve had such amazing support and Baby J is so lucky to be loved by so many people!