When Ricka Came

Another of my Draft Posts. I think it was just waiting for me to pick some cute pictures of Ricka and re-size them. But if this post is going up before the next baby comes, I should get on with it!

July 28th, 2011....

We just didn't know that Ricka was going to come a whole week early.

It's funny how when you think you have everything under control nothing goes according to plan. I was NOT ready for Ricka to come when she did. I had the whole last week before she was due completely booked. We did not have a baby name chosen, I did not have my hospital bag packed. After Grandma C. got hurt we alternated between going up to the hospital to see her and having Grandpa C. and Dee over for dinner and hockey.

Thursday (June 9th), we'd gone up to see Grandma and the next evening Grace and her kids joined us for dinner too. I was almost one week away from my due date. It's kind of interesting that just as Grace was leaving that evening she said, "Thanks again for dinner, and I hope you have that baby soon!" I laughed and agreed as I closed the door behind her and then started to tidy up since everyone had gone and Sir was finishing the screen door project he'd been working on for a couple days.

A couple hours later after discovering I still hadn't finished packing a hospital bag, Sir insisted I do that before I went to bed that night. "I don't care if you just have one pair of underwear in the bag. I just want to have a bag somewhere that I can grab!". Of course he knew I'd never settle for just partially packing my bag. After all, that was why it wasn't even packed. I had piles of stuff all over the place that I'd been collecting for my bag, but I just hadn't put it all together yet. So, at 11 pm, I finally dug out a duffle bag and put all my piles of collected stuff into it, and with that I had a hospital bag packed. Then we started talking about more baby name options sometime around midnight and when we'd finally settled on something, it was time to call it a night.

I woke up at 4:30 because my water had broken. That had never happened on its own before so at first there was quite a bit of confusion as we realized it was actually labor. Then we had to figure out who to wake up at 5am and ask if they could come watch the older kids while we headed to the hospital. The PLAN was, for my mom to come up from CA on the 13th (a whole 6 days before my due date), and we'd have someone already here when the baby finally decided to arrive. Ricka had her own plans, and thankfully, Chasm's Lady graciously took on this task in all it's short-notice and arrived in good time. I felt terrible asking her to come over when my contractions during the first half hour - 45 minutes weren't even worthy of being called contractions, but they were steadily increasing in intensity, so by the time we left our house to make the 5 minute drive to the hospital I was very glad the ride wasn't any longer.

At first I kept thinking, 'We can't go into labor now! The mattress guys are supposed to call between 7 and 8am to schedule a delivery time for later in the day and we have to be home.' We had decided that since my mom was going to be staying with us for a couple weeks after the baby came, we'd finally upgrade our double bed to a queen which would also give us a decent guest bed. I'd figured I'd have a whole week before the baby came, to set up a guest room for my mom once we got our new mattress.

Anyway, we finally called Chasm's Lady and she got to our house around 5:30. I felt terrible interrupting her day so early - especially when my contractions weren't that strong by the time she arrived, but it was a bit frightening to see how quickly and consistenly they were intensifying. By the time we got to the hospital less than 10 minutes later, I had to stop and really work through a contraction every 2 minutes.

We got checked in, settled into a delivery room and resigned ourselves to this being the 'real thing'. And then there was the hour that seems to take forever. I remember looking at the clock at 7:15 and thinking, 'If this was Butler, he'd be born already!'. To me, it seemed like my most dificult labour, but I was exhausted before it even started. All I wanted was a little break, so I could rest before we got down to the business of having a baby, but Ricka was on her way whether I was ready or not. Just a note: Do not go into labour after less than 4 hours of sleep!

And so, Ricka was born on Saturday, June 11th at 7:43 - just over 3 hours after I had woken up. She came out screaming mad and healthy as a horse! She took center stage size-wise compared to her other siblings weighing in at 8lbs, 13 oz and 21 inches long.

And that, is the story of when Ricka came.
THE END