Noah Joaquin born 10-16-09 @ 8:23 am...
In the early morning hours of Friday, October 16, 2009, I started having contractions that made me think, "Great, it's going to be another one of those false alarms." When the contractions continued for the next 2 hours, I decided to wake up my peacefully sleeping husband (thankfully he was off that day!) and tell him, those four words no husband of an expecting wife wants to hear at 4am, "I think its time!"
So in a harried rush, we woke up lil Ace, got everything ready to go, and let Ace's mom know that we were headed to the hospital. She was going to fly in to take care of lil Ace during our hospital stay- I know, the best mother in law ever, right?!! =) The drive was horrendous...we live over a half an hour away from the hospital (which is downtown, so not only far, but lots of stop lights) and by that time, around 5:30 am, I was in terrible pain.
We got to the hospital, the nurse checks me and decides that I should be admitted. No false alarm this time! In our rush to get to the hospital, we had forgotten one small detail- who was to take care of lil Ace before Ace's mom got here?? Now, under normal circumstances we probably would not have worried so much about this nor had a problem finding someone to come to the hospital to stay with him there, but due to the whole H1N1 fiasco, no person under age 18 was allowed in the hospital! So we had to find someone to take him for the time being until Ace's mom was to arrive later that afternoon.
Considering my last labor took a few hours to progress to delivery, Ace and I thought we had some time. He called my mom friend who agreed to watch him at her house-the only thing was he had to drive him there. She lives near us, and remember, we're about a half hour away from the hospital. I wasn't the least bit worried that Ace wouldn't get back in time. I thought we'd have a few hours or so! Boy was I wrong!
After Ace left, I got my epidural, and thought things would be smooth sailing. Wrong again! My labor was progressing so quickly that the epidural could not keep up, not even with an extra dose of pain meds could I feel comfortable! Time was ticking away, and this baby was ready to be born. I was calling and calling Ace to see if he was on his way back to the hospital. Meanwhile, the nurses were telling me I could push if I wanted to! I told them I wanted to wait until my husband came back (at this point, he was still 15 minutes away!) It was crazy...I was just remembering Ace saying to me, "Jen, if we can't find someone to take lil Ace for now, do you think you can do this on your own?" Great, I'm going to have to deliver on my own! Just as this thought crossed my mind, Ace walks in the door in the nick of time, I start pushing, and 20 minutes later, the rest is history. Noah Joaquin enters the world with a quickness!
Since our little Noah was born at 36 wks. and 4 days, we had to stay two full days in the hospital (they call it, late term preemie). He was healthy though, and there were no complications and that's all we could ask for! The hardest thing, believe it or not, was being separated from lil Ace for the longest time ever! Luckily he was in the caring hands of his Nana, so we didn't have to worry. We went home the afternoon of the 18th a family of 4!