Cailyn

Announcing the arrival of Cailyn Rae!

It was a busy Monday morning. My classroom had been moved out to the trailers because my school is being renovated. I wanted to get in early to start doing a little unpacking and to make sure the basic things I would need to teach were available. I arrived at school about 6:50. I bustled around all morning. I was probably doing a little more than I should have (you know me) but I was trying not to do too much. Around 7:30, I felt a realy contraction, more than I had felt over the past few weeks, even when I was on bed rest. I didn't think too much about it though, since I was doing a lot of moving around. I thought I would just try to take it easy for the rest of the day. Then, around 8:00 I felt another one and again at 8:30, but by then it was time to pick up my students and bring them into their new classroom.

The contraction at 8:45 was a little harder and I had to sit down for that one...and the one at 9:00. I mentioned to Frank, the special ed. teacher who is in my class with me, that I may not make it through the day. He asked if he should call the office, but I said that I thought I would be fine as long as I didn't move around too much. (I know, you're laughing at me right now.)

Well, at 9:20, I looked at the clock and realized that I had been having a contraction about every 5 minutes since 9:00. Hmmm....I told Frank that he should go and call the office. My assistant principal, Melissa, came down, and we went into the extra room in the trailer. I was calling the doctor, while Melissa called Mike. The contractions were coming fast and furious at this point and it was hard to even talk. I couldn't get a hold of my doctor, so I called the advice nurse. She did get a hold of the doctor. I was registered at a hospital close to where we live, which would have taken about 1/2 hour to get to from my work. The doctor told me to go to the hospital that was 5 minutes down the road. I didn't care at this point, so I said fine, as long as Mike got the message to go to the right hospital.

Melissa drove me to the hospital and we got there about 9:55. I was filling out paperwork and having more contractions, while the people in the lobby were looking a little nervous. Mike arrived at 10:05 and we went up the elevator to the second registration desk. While at that desk I had two more contractions and the nurse's eyes (as well as the two pregnant ladies sitting there) began to grow larger. They didn't have a room available right then so they took me to a curtained off area. I was already 9 cm dilated! They practically threw me onto a gurney and rushed me down the hall. As we were going down the hall the doctor asked, "Do you want an epidural...you won't have time." Darn.

It was probably around 10:30 at this point. We got into the delivery room. The nurses were flying around the room trying to get everything set up. However, before they got a fetal monitor or an IV on, the doctor told me to start pushing. About 3 contractions later, it was 10:50 and we had a beautiful baby girl. All I could say was, "That was fast!"