Monday was a beautiful day. Ronak's afternoon meeting was canceled, so he worked from home. (The planets were aligning.)
I drove Mom and Brian to HEB to stock up on groceries they needed. (Little did they know that this was the first time I had driven since we moved in March.) Mom was worried about me fitting behind the wheel, but I did.
We made a lovely chef salad for dinner. The first joint project to be completed by the group that would later be known as "Team Baby." (I never got a chance to make the t-shirts.)
Then, I suggested we go for a drive. My main intent was to pick up my Buffy and Angel comic book issues that had been out for some time, but the comic book shop we went to wasn't far from the hospital, so it would be a good opportunity to show Mom and Brian where the hospital was and how to get there. Of course we'd visit again and draw them a detailed map later, so they could find their way back and forth to the house once the baby was on the way. (Little did I know that I'd be working on those maps hours later.)
So we took a drive down Parmer, giving a brief tour of the way to the hospital. Then we continued on to the comic book store.
I waddled through the shop and discovered that in addition to the Angel and Buffy issues, there were three Serenity comics I didn't have yet. Yes, it was a beautiful day.
There was a dream sequence at the beginning of Angel. I read it out loud on the way home. Ronak didn't think I should because it gave away something and Brian hadn't read the Angels yet, but being a dream, Brian didn't catch on to the clue.
A little later I told the baby, "It's almost time for you to arrive. Just a few more days. Your lease is almost up." (He must have been listening.)
Just before we turned onto 1431, Ronak looked into the rear view window and saw the most beautiful rainbow. Brian was armed with his camera and asked that we pull over so he could get some pictures.
We let Brian out on a side street while we found a place to park. We enjoyed the view ourselves. Then he signaled that he was ready to go, so we picked him up.
We thought he might be able to get some nice shots of the rainbow at the lake in our community and were about to head there when Mom mentioned that she needed to use the bathroom. So we drove back to the house.
She let herself in with the set of keys we had given her earlier. (One of the few preparations we had actually made.) Mom told us to go ahead to the lake without her, but we decided to wait (which turned out to be a good thing).
Because while we were waiting outside in the car, I had a pain. Brian and Ronak were concerned. "Was that a contraction?"
"I don't know," I said. "It might have been. I probably just need to walk around."
(They say that you "just know" when you are having contractions, but honestly I didn't - not until they got really intense much later.)
It was 8:19 pm (central time). How do we know this? Because my coach made meticulous notes as he punched buttons on his stopwatch? Nope, we found out from Brian's camera. He took a picture of the house as we waited outside, and the camera recorded the time down to the second.
Mom returned to the car, and we drove back to the lake at the entrance of our community. We no longer had a clear view of the rainbow, but we parked the car and began our walk anyway. "The view might be better from the other side," we thought. (We never found out if that were true.)
The path goes under the bridge to the left; it doesn't continue far if one turns right. (The town is supposed to finish that side when they complete the rest of the park.) Mom and I were ahead, and we opted to turn right, because there were two boys racing around to the left, the one on the skateboard being pulled by the bicyclist, falling off as they made the curve too fast.
It was 8:31 pm. It was good that we headed right, because there were nice large rocks by the side of the path (and one of them would come in handy in just a few minutes).
I was showing Mom the locations of wildflowers (present and past), when it happened.
I may not have recognized my first contraction, but I knew when my water broke. In mid-sentence, there was a gush between my legs. I froze. I wasn't ready. My hospital bag wasn't even packed yet. And I was positive for Strep Group B, so this was not the way I had wanted things to happen. I wanted to labor at home. I didn't want to go to the hospital right away and start antibiotics.
I don't know if my mom could tell something had happened, but as soon as Ronak caught up to us and took a look at my face, he asked if I was okay.
I hoped I had just had an accident on myself. I didn't want this to be happening. It was a beautiful day for a walk around the lake. I wanted to continue that walk. But every time I moved, there was a gush. The other members of Team Baby thought we should postpone our walk, go home, and figure out what was happening.
I sat on a rock and waited with Mom while Brian and Ronak retrieved a towel from a car. Why was there a towel in the car?
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