23

When we picked our wedding date it had no significance to us.  It just worked for timing and we had just enough time to squeeze in our honeymoon before I had to be back at school.  Who knew a number could end up having so much significance in your life?  August 23rd 1997.  23 is now our family's lucky number.

Our anniversary and three years later to the day, our first daughter's birthday.  I love birth stories.  I love telling ours and hearing others.  It's such a significant day in the lives of a family, a mom,  and it's the one holiday that is all about one person and making them feel special.  Kelsey was 11 days late and our doctor suggested I try something to induce her arrival.  I did not want pitocin so we opted for a hormone strip on my cervix she said that it would often cause someone to go into labor that same day or the next day in a more natural way.   When she scheduled it for our anniversary we laughed and thought about changing it to another day.  We opted not to.  So we spent our 3rd anniversary at the hospital.  We weren't even technically admitted because it was considered an outpatient procedure.  We also were not in maternity or a delivery room.  I had a roommate.  Actually several.  It felt like a Jennifer Aniston movie where everyone else around me was having a baby but mine would not come.  Throughout the day I would tell the nurses that my contractions were 5 minutes apart, 4 minutes apart, 3, 2, 1, etc.  They would look at the monitor that was attached to my belly and frown and wonder out loud why my doctor decided this was a good option.  They kept muttering that my uterus was irritated.  They told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't in labor yet.  Wow, I thought.  If this isn't labor I better save my bag of tricks for the real thing!  It was our first baby so we had lavender scents, hard candies, and other things our birthing teacher had said would help with laboring.  Never pulled one of em out.  I didn't even give Rod's hand a big bone crushing squeeze like I had planned to.  I was saving that for labor.  And I was never in labor.

Around 5:30 I started getting really irritated that we'd spent our entire Anniversary in the hospital and that I'd been in consistent, albeit several minutes apart, pain all day. When they wheeled in my dinner cart and told my roommate they couldn't give her one because she was going to have a baby tonight or tomorrow morning I'd had just about enough.     I finally just asked if they could send me home.  If this wasn't working then why couldn't I just spend the rest of my day at home. I had decided at this point I might as well come back tomorrow and do pitocin.   They called my doctor who was surprised that I would even consider pitocin and she asked if they had checked me.  They said no they hadn't because I wasn't in labor and she said they could send me home if they checked me.  They came in and annoyingly told me that my doctor insisted I be checked before being sent home.  That's when the panic started.  She did the exam and said in an alarmed voice, "I can't feel your cervix!"  And me who was utterly annoyed and must not have been paying much attention in birthing class was thinking "Well then get a nurse that can!"  Rod apparently was paying attention and realized we were about to have our first baby.  They quickly got me in a wheelchair and ran down the hall to a delivery room with Rod gathering all our stuff and chasing behind us.  At some point someone called my doctor who barely had time to get in her car and make it there.  She rushed in, put on her gloves, and less than 10 minutes later Kelsey was born.  They hadn't even turned the incubator light on in the room so Kelsey had to be brought to the nursery to be warmed up.  Every one was a little bit in shock about how quickly it had all happened.

My parents were both in the vicinity of the hospital at the time of her birth.  They knew I had gone in that morning.   My mom and step-dad called the hospital and they were told that I wasn't there.  My dad and step-mom stopped by the hospital and was told I wasn't a patient there.  This was of course before cell phones so they drove an hour home only to find a message on their answering machines that their first grandchild was born.  Of course they got right back in their cars to come meet her.  I spent the entire night saying "But I wasn't in labor, how could I have a baby?"  My dad kept reassuring me "You were in labor, they just didn't know it!"  My baby girl was here.  Long and stretched out and so happy to not be in my tiny belly for another second.  All the other babies in the nursery were curled up and wrapped in their swaddled blankets.  She was laying down with her hands and feet stretched out as far as they could reach.  Perfect and sweet.  Our very first baby had arrived!  We were officially parents.

When it came time to have our second baby we opted not to go the hospital route.  We felt that the nurses had been paying too much attention to the machines and not enough attention to me.  I was telling them that my contractions were getting consistently closer and closer together and were lasting for 45 seconds each time.  I labored by watching the clock.  They were perfectly consistent.  But what did I know?  I had never been in labor before.  They were the experts.  I listened to them.  But what I realized later was that they never stayed and watched me.  Just came in, checked the machine and left.  At one point a nurse was in there when I was having a contraction and she said "Hmm, the machine isn't giving you the credit you deserve".  She did not however stay to monitor me.  

So for the second time around we enquired about midwives.  Our doctor had a young family of her own and wasn't delivery babies anymore so we decided to go the birthing center route.  We loved the bed and breakfast feel of the birthing rooms.  They had beds and furniture and bassinets.  You labored in your room or in the living room where countless other families had labored and celebrated the additions to their families.  We were sold.  We loved the midwives and the whole feel of the place.  Two years and five months later our 2nd daughter was born.  January 23rd, also significant because it is my brother's birthday.  We arrived at the birthing center in labor and I spent much of the time walking around rubbing my belly to get through the contractions.  In between I would glance through photo albums of all the other babies born there and look at the pictures on the walls.  I was constantly moving.  Happy to be up and about and not strapped to a machine that was incorrectly monitoring me.  The midwives would come in every so often to check on us.  They would stay through several of my contractions to monitor not only the time in between my contractions but also how I was feeling.  They quickly caught on to the fact that I don't talk during contractions.  I would hold up my finger in the middle of a sentence as if to say one second.  Then I just rubbed my belly and when the contraction was over I could resume my conversations.

At one point they decided that my stomach was getting very red from all my rubbing and they asked if I wanted to try something else.  They mentioned the midwives epidural which is a tub of warm water that helps alleviate laboring pains.  I decided to give it a try.  I had no desire to have a water birth and hadn't really read up on any of it but decided I could at least labor in the tub.  As they got the water to the correct temperature they had me climb in the shower as they filled up the tub.  I was very annoyed to have to stay in one position and continued to walk in place while rubbing my stomach.  When I layed down in the tub I was annoyed again to not be able to move around.  It turns out I was transitioning and would have been annoyed wherever I was.  Before we knew it I was making my characteristic I have to push sounds and Rod had run to get the midwife.  They realized they didn't have time to get me out of the tub before this baby was born and minutes later Lindsay was here.  She was born into water completely surrounded by her bag of waters.  It never broke during her birth.  I walked to the bed in the other room for Rod to cut the cord and for me to snuggle up with her.  I was freezing and trembling from the cold and the hormones but my second baby girls was here.  Safe and sound and just as beautiful and perfect as the first!  Her grandparents and big sister came to welcome her to the world.  I went home less than 9 hours later and had a house full of friends bring pizza and babies to celebrate her arrival.

Just shy of 2 years later our 3rd daughter, who was originally thought to be due on Christmas but showed a due date of December 23rd on the ultrasound, arrived.  She came a full two weeks late on January 6 (But as she frequently points out 2 times 3 equals 6).  I had several false labors with her which is funny for baby number 3.  You'd think I would know what I was doing by now.  I think I was so nervous about making sure the other two had somewhere safe to be that I didn't want to be late to the game.  Instead I kept jumping the gun.  When she was finally a full 14 days late we went to the Birthing Center.  The midwives noted that my water had increased significantly since my earlier appointment just 2 or 3 days prior.  I had been complaining about stretch marks forming and my skin stretching and aching.  When the midwife mentioned breaking my water I asked if she had a change of clothes.  She laughed and said yes but that she never needed them.  But with me, she did.  I didn't go into immediate labor so they suggested we go down the road to a local mall until I was in labor and then to return to the birthing center.  We decided to go and get some cheesecake for the midwives that would be spending this long night ahead with us.  I had a contraction while we were standing at the counter.   Rod checked his watch.  Without saying anything I tapped Rod's shoulder a minute later.  He looked at me with a look of alarm and noted that I couldn't be having another one as they were only a minute apart.  I, of course, insisted that if we'd made the trek to the mall we would also go to pottery barn kids and had to return to the Cheesecake Factory to pick up our order on the way out.  The car ride back to the birthing center was not fun.  Every red light was excruciating.  I just didn't want to be sitting still for contractions.  When we got back a class was taking place in the living room so we went back to our birthing room.  One midwife was with us and the second one was with the class that had just seen me return from the mall.   The teacher told the class she was going to check in on me and see if I would be okay with the class coming back to see a room with someone in labor.  When she got into the room she realized how far along I was and stayed.  She returned to her class 15 minutes later to tell them that I had just had my third baby girl.  The class was completely in awe and they all asked if they could sign up for that kind of labor!  Haley was apparently not happy about being taken out of the comfort of my womb as she cried and cried much of that night.  She was absolutely perfect but not very happy that first night.  If they hadn't broken my water I wonder how long she would have stayed (Although I was a water balloon about to burst when her birth date arrived so maybe her days inside were numbered anyway!)  Her sisters and grandparents came to visit and we were all home in the comfort of our own home the next morning.

For our 10th anniversary Rod designed an eternity band for me with a jeweler he knows.  The jeweler told him there would be approximately 14 or 15 diamonds in it. Rod asked that he try to include 14 because it's my birthdate.  A few days later the jeweler called back to apologize, he didn't know what he was thinking.  There were going to be 23 diamonds and was that ok?   Rod was so excited to give me that ring and even more excited to tell me the special significance of our lucky number.

Years later Rod moved his business to a new building.  When he had the choice of 25 or 23 Drydock he of course chose 23.  I didn't even notice at first.  My neighbor got his new business card and noted the number.  She asked if he had picked it.  It was then that I found out he had.

Our brother-in-law has won some money off our lucky number in Vegas at the roulette table so apparently the number isn't just lucky for us!  For our 20th dating anniversary we went to Bermuda alone.   We plan to go to Hawaii for our 20th wedding anniversary and take the kids.  I wonder what we will do for lucky 23?