Plan B

I love how life jumps in to shake up my schedule every once in a while. This week has been a prime example.

My boss was due to have her first baby by c-section in three weeks. She and her husband had toured the hospital, started making lists, and scheduled family to fly in.

On Wednesday Carey could be quoted as saying “In three weeks he will be here!!” multiple times. That evening she and I were to join some other staff members for a mission’s banquet. Carey followed me to my apartment where we dropped off my car and then piled into her Malibu. The dinner was on the opposite end of town, but we made good time and pulled into the hotel around 6:45pm. The parking lot was crazy, so we ended up walking for quite a ways. We found the rest of our staff and enjoyed dinner before the first speaker took the podium. Sometime around 8:00pm Carey walked forward to receive an award on behalf of our Children’s department. She waddled back to our table, sat down, and turned with the rest of us to watch a choir take the stage. The song was loud and robust and something about needing a miracle. Little did we know that the miracle was about to arrive.

“I think my water just broke.” What a sentence. It has the power to move people – as in get up in the middle of a banquet and flee through the kitchen to the nearest bathroom. I’m not sure what the other hundreds of people thought as the nine of us hurried out, we must have been quite a scene. A manager at the hotel kept asking if we needed a paramedic or an ambulance, but the consensus was to put Carey in the car and drive her a few miles down to the hospital. I remember grabbing her hand and holding it as we left the hotel. The weight of the moment was starting to seep in. Carey was wonderful and only a little teary-eyed until she was reassured that everything she was experiencing was normal. Her c-section had been scheduled because the baby was breech and had no room to move. Carey’s husband Eric was called and it took close to two minutes of convincing before he realized we weren’t pulling an ellaborate prank. He was to meet us as soon as possible at the hospital.

I was nominated to drive Carey’s Malibu to a hospital I had never been to. So of course I called my friend Virginia for directions, and to tell the story. The phone conversations that evening were hilarious as no one seemed to want to believe me. (I’m known as a bit of a prankster around the office). Good things to know if this same situation ever happens again: you cannot make left turns off of 7th street from 6pm-9pm. I finally found my way to the hospital but couldn’t locate the OB Triage building. A few phone calls later and I found my way to the ER parking lot. The sign in front of my spot said “FAMILY OR PATIENT PARKING ONLY.” I decided that I could qualify.

When I walked through the sliding doors Carey was in a wheelchair sipping water through a straw. We had to wait for a hospital representative to take us to our destination because we would “get lost.” As we waited Carey mentioned a long sharp pain down her side. Mikki’s reply, “That’s a real contraction Carey.” (Carey’s had contractions on and off for the past three months.) We finally made the trek up to Triage. The hospital staff pushed Carey while the 4 “family members” followed along. Daddy had still not arrived. We pulled into Triage and my phone continued to vibrate this entire journey with plenty of questions from concerned and overly excited friends. Carey checked in and eventually went back to some magical area where only one of us was selected to follow. This was not my specialty; therefore I sat and waited for Dad to show up.

Eric, the dad to be, flew through the elevator doors in a flash. He carried a camera bag and pulled a giant wheeling suitcase. His first words? “I’m like totally freaking out. I can’t stop sweating. Is there water anywhere?” I hurridly gave him a crash course in using Carey's Rebel XTI (camera) before watching him fly through another set of doors.

The good news, Eric made it in time. Renn was born one month early but managed a strong 6lb weigh in. He saw mom and dad at 11:00pm on April 23rd. I’ve been to the hospital twice since then. Renn is a looker, Carey is wonderful, and Eric will tear up every once in a while, or so I hear.

What a week. Plans went totally out the window, but what a miracle they were traded for!