It was only 4 French Fries…

I’ll never look at Five Guys French Fries ever the same…and no it has nothing to do with food poisoning or a bad reaction or anything…but because it forced me to endure 8 hours of god awful labor and I forever will be salty towards them (get it…salty…heh heh).

I prepared myself to go into labor early pretty much since day one…and yet I still wasn’t ACTUALLY prepared when it happened. After I had reached the point where I went into labor with Emma many moons again, I started to get cocky and think I was in the clear. I was going to ride this wave all the way in and would have all my boxes checked (cuz I’ve only had like what…9 months) and have a blissfuly coordinated and logistically sound delivery.

You can already assume that this didn’t happen.

We had planned for Emma to spend the weekend away at her grammies house to give the kids kinda a “last hoorah of being completely spoiled” by a set of grownups before baby came and rocked their world. On my agenda for our solo kid weekend were a few key things:

PUT THAT DAMN TRAMPOLINE TOGETHER. It’s been 15 degrees pretty much every day since Christmas and that box taunted me everyday. In that box, held my dreams of outdoor play and cabin fever breaks for these kids and it needed to live in the outside world. (CHECK CHECK THANK YOU HUSBAND CHECK)
GET A DAMN CAR SEAT. I’ve been procrastinating on this one hard…looking for the best price, but also just being my usual “i’ll take care of it later” self. But, by the end of the weekend we would have one. (WE WOULD NOT HAVE ONE BY THE END OF THE WEEKEND)
CLEAN THE PLAYROOM. This room houses all of my anxieties and gets the brunt of my reorganization and trash purges on a regular basis. It had gotten out of hand after Christmas and a birthday and it needed to get it’s butt in line and I was coming for it. (PLAYROOM OWNED, NOW EVERYONE STAY OUT)
TAKE LUKE OUT FOR SOMETHING FUN. Ok, the kid does fun things all the time, but often things that him and Emma can do together. Since we were 2 on 1, I wanted to do something up to his speed. (I BLAME THIS FOR ALL THE EXCITEMENT)
FIND THE DAMN BURP CLOTHS. Where are you hiding in my house?! (STILL PONDERING THIS).

Three outta five…ain’t bad?

We decided to take Luke swimming, he loves swimming, hasn’t been in months, and since I could enjoy being a weightless whale for a hot second, seemed like something I could handle. About 45 minutes into this special water outing… they showed up.

Those little pesky abdominal muscle contractions that like to tap you on your shoulder every once and awhile to let you know they’re there…and there again…and some more…and maybe now you should start paying attention. I made one passing comment to Pete about how I was jokingly timing these suckers, but they were probably nothing (NOT NOTHING), and off we went.

My original plan was to have a nice meal out as a charming family of three in public before we were sanctioned to our house for the next few weeks in newborn isolation. There was just one problem, LUKE WASN’T HAVING ANY OF IT. What kid doesn’t wanna eat a restaurant I tell you? Mine in that moment.

We bribed him with dessert after…or maybe even during…we bribed him with fancy drinks and maybe even pancakes, ANYTHING KID…WERE STARVING HERE. Nope…home he wanted to go and eat boring butter noodles…and since I was attempting to ignore those contractions that kept coming…we figured we’d just run out and get something else later. It’s almost as if he knew something I didn’t…simply another incident where I believe Luke to be a prophet or something creepy like that.

Flash forward to an hour later where I’m calling the doctor laughing to myself on the message how dumb I sound that I think i’m having consistent contractions, but that probably aren’t real, but they feel real and seem real, but I dunno so please tell me what to do…love, Lindsey. He told me to try and relax, time them, and call him back if they got to 3-5 mins apart over an hour. And an hour later I’m calling him back telling him they’re 3-5 mins apart.

But in that time frame of not trusting they were real, downloading a contraction counter for the first time in my life, and really wanting those french fries Pete had just gone out for…I ate 4 French Fries.

Damn you 4 Five Guys French Fries, yes you were delicious, but you ruined my life for the next 8 hours.

Off we went to the hospital once Grammie arrived back home with Emma to take over kid duty for the night…or at least until we came home after they were obviously going to send me home…obviously.

THEY DIDN’T SEND ME HOME AND BECAUSE I ATE THOSE 4 FRENCH FRIES I HAD TO SIT AND SUFFER IN LABOR FOR 8 HOURS BECAUSE I CANT LIE TO PEOPLEEEEEEE.

Nurse: “When was the last thing you ate?”

Me: (Starts clammering, looking around the room nervously and sweating) Ummmmmm…

Pete: Probably those fries you had around 8…

Me: Yea…those. (DAMN YOU FRIES)

The fun triage nurse gave me one of those “well that was dumb” looks, asked me if I was getting my tubes tied after this (she clearly thought I was too dumb to bring more life into the world), told me about how wonderful her tubal ligation was when I said no, and then left us to report to Dr. Forrest that the fry eating girl was actually in legit labor and he shouldn’t send me home.

Those french fries would define my status for the next 2 days. They sent us up to Labor and Delivery to wait until those pesky fries and their complex carb status left my system enough to have the baby safely…aka an eternity.

The beauty of having a scheduled c-section (and yes, I am in the camp that this is fantastic), is the whole showing up at a certain time and having the baby two hours later without any of the pain of a contraction…the ugliness of showing up to have a baby after going into labor early and eating 4 french fries is having to labor for 8 hours THEN have a c section in the wee hours of the morning. I lasted until 2 AM, begged for the epidural and felt the world was a beautiful place again…a beautiful, holy, magical land where the nurse asks if you feel that nasty contraction on the screen and you have zero clue what she’s talking about because theres only light, and smiles, and puppies in the world.

I got exactly 22 minutes of sleep when the nurses busted in at 4:30AM to tell me Dr. Forrest was ready to end my labor and delivery purgatory and deliver this bud once and for all. Praise you 4:30AM night nurses with your zest for excitement in the wee hours of the night, you are my baby heroes.

Shepherd “Shep” James was born at 5:05 AM 7 lbs 7oz 21 inches long, 9 days before he was expected; dusty blonde, blue eyed, and looking a whole heck of a lot like his big brother.