Caleb's Story Part 2

When we last met, I was still pregnant and we had decided on having a c-section after agonizing over the idea.

Everything was scheduled and I was placed on the schedule for a c-section on my 38 week mark on March 28th. However, Caleb had other plans in mind.

Early on the 26th, around 4, a huge thunderstorm rolled through town. I should also mention that it was a full moon out, two factors that, based on the old wives tales, were prime baby having time. Thunderstorms and I don't particularly get along, I'm always awake when it gets really loud, but this time I just didn't feel well either, so I got up. I remember sitting on the couch feeling weird, like I had eaten something really bad, running back and forth to the bathroom. I'll spare you the gory details, but I'm sure that y'all can figure out what was going on during those trips. I would later find out that this, in fact, was early labor.

Jes got up around 7:30 and we decided that we would get on with our day. My parents had been at our house the whole day before helping me get everything ready for Caleb's birth, but there was still so much to do, so we got ourselves together and headed out the door. By this point, other than feeling like a beached whale on stilts, I felt pretty good, just tired from my early morning escapades.

We spent our day running (well, I waddled through) lots of errands, culminating at lunch at my pick of the day, Olive Garden. Something about my pregnancy with Caleb made me crave tomatoes to the depth of my being and I couldn't get enough of them. OG has lots of tomato based products, so needless to say we spent lots of time and money there.

At the time of my pregnancy with Caleb I was teaching chemistry at a private school about 20 miles south of our house, but less than a mile from the hospital that I was set to deliver at. After lunch we went up to the school so I could complete a test and get all my things in order for my long term sub to come in and take over that following Tuesday (Monday was the Easter holiday).
The first thing that I did was visit the ladies room because I knew that I didn't want to be running up and down the hallway a million times once I got my work started. I just wanted to get in and get done and get home. Jes was sitting with me while I worked and all at once I felt a gush. I looked at him and said the following, "Either I just peed on myself or my water just broke." To this day he tells me that that was when I started to look "different" (ie Caleb dropped) and that something just wasn't right. I immediately called my mom and asked her what to do and if she knew what that felt like, but seeing as she had delivered her one and only child nearly 27 years earlier she could not shed any light on my situation. I really hesitated calling my doctor because I certainly didn't want to bother him on his Saturday off, but after 30 minutes (yes, 30. What? I'm stubborn.) I called him and he instructed us to go directly to the hospital.

On the way to the hospital, Jes called my parents again and told them to get to the hospital because I was going in. The sweetest thing was in the background, you could hear my dad scurrying around trying to gather up all his stuff and find shoes for himself and my mom so that they could get there as quick as possible. It was just a small moment, but sweet nonetheless.

If you have ever had a spontaneous bag rupture, then you know that they have to test you to make sure that the fluid that you are leaking is amniotic (not urine, like I previously thought) and that was exactly the test I had performed after getting into a hospital gown and into the bed. Of course it was positive. And I was terrified. I just kept telling Jes over and over that this wasn't supposed to happen this way. And he just kept telling me that I wasn't in control of it.

As I was surrounded by my family and their prayers, a peace washed over me and I knew that God's hand was directly on me and my growing family, but nothing would prepare Jes and I for what would transpire in the next hours and days.

We got to the operating room around 5 and shortly before 6 we heard our doctor saying, "well, oh! That's not supposed to happen."