Practice Round

It just wouldn’t be a pregnancy in our house if we didn’t have a couple challenges along the way.  For the past little while Thesha had been having some contractions, but last Wednesday they really started to intensify and get pretty regular.  The doctor told us to go ahead and go to the Maternity Triage center and they would evaluate things there.  Thankfully we have a couple in our ward (yes, we’re a ward now) who have a couple boys around Tyler’s age so they picked up Tyler and we headed out to the hospital for what we thought would be just a quick evaluation and some advice on how to get the contractions to subside.  Five days later, we finally came back home.

So we showed up at the hospital and started through all the same old procedures with the nurse.  Then, all the sudden, in walks the doctor and Thesha and I were both totally caught off guard by what we saw.  The doctor looked just like Chadli.  She had the same style of glasses, the same hair color (I don’t know if it’s the same brand, but it was the same color), similar personalities, about the same age, even similar hand gestures.   It was kind of crazy.  That is, until the doctor said, “Alright, let’s take a look.”  Then it just got really weird, really fast.  It’s one thing to have a stranger checking you out, but when the stranger looks like your sister-in-law, it just crosses the line, ya’ know.  Nothing personal Cha, but if someone that looked just like one of Travis’ sisters put on a rubber glove with KY jelly on it and started walking towards you’d probably be a little freaked out too.  Thankfully she was just the triage doctor and once she saw (and unfortunately felt) what was going on they sent us over to labor and delivery (just in case) where Thesha was then seen by her regular doctors.

Tyler was apparently having a pretty good time, but our friends, Brittany and Mike, could tell that he was missing his mom, dad, and home.  She told us that Mike came home and her two boys ran to the door yelling “Daddy” and Tyler followed them along thinking he was going to see his Daddy too.  When Mike walked in the door, it stopped him in his tracks and he got all sad and just hugged Brittany for a while.  He eventually warmed up to him, but things were just not right in his world.

Thankfully on Friday night Thesha’s mom was able to fly in to take care of Tyler for us.  What a life saver!  Because the flight came in so late, I went over to pick him up and take him home on Saturday morning.  When I walked through the door Tyler just stood there for a second to make sure I was real.  Then he ran towards me but stopped just in front of me and just stared at me for a second.  I wasn’t sure if he was mad at me or what, but once he realized I was in fact his dad he gave me a big hug and just latched on as tight as he could.  When I tried to pull him away to change his clothes and get him ready to go he pulled me in closer and grabbed at my shirt so I wouldn’t put him down.  I felt bad that we had put him through all this, but I was glad to see that he wasn’t too mad at me.

Unfortunately the initial reception for Thesha wasn’t quite as satisfying.  To this day I still remember walking in to the hospital room where my dad was laying on the bed after he had hurt his eye.  I remember that it was him but that I was scared to death of him.  Tyler had this experience going to see Thesha.  As we walked towards the door we said, “Are you ready to see Mom?” and he excitedly replied, “Ma ma, Ma ma.” but just a few steps in to the room and he stopped dead in his tracks and demanded to be picked up and held.  As we walked towards Thesha’s bed he got the sad face with the pushed out lower lip and he pulled himself as close as he could to me.  It was soooo sad.  Thesha was so excited to see him but she understood why he was scared.  He eventually calmed down and was able to sit by her for a little while, but he never really warmed up to the idea that this was really his Ma ma.  Thankfully as we walked in the door at home today Thesha got the reaction she was hoping for.  He latched on to her as tight as he had latched on to me and just hugged her for about 5 minutes.  Finally, Mom and Dad were home and we could all be normal again.  It will be interesting to see how he reacts when it’s not a practice round but the real deal and now it’s Mom, Dad, and a new baby Reagan coming in the door.

Here’s a picture of Thesha and Tyler in the hospital room.  Notice that we had to distract Tyler with a cell phone for him to calm down and sit with Mom for a little while.

So, you’re probably wondering, “What’s the deal, then?  Is Reagan alright?”  She is doing fine.  Throughout the whole ordeal she looked just fine on all the monitors.  When it looked like things might be headed towards an early delivery, Dad suggested that maybe an ultrasound might help us know if she was well enough to be born without any problems.  At first the doctor said no, but then she came back and said that it might be a good idea to do one to make sure there was still plenty of amniotic fluid.  (Thanks for the suggestion, Dad!)  So for all our troubles, at least we got another ultrasound.  Thankfully Reagan was willing to cooperate this time as well so we could get a good picture of her.  In our prior ultrasound, she had her face buried in the placenta which made it hard to see her face.  As you can see from the picture below, she has a beautiful face (assuming there’s nothing freaky behind the umbilical cord that she’s holding over her right eye).

The technician performing the ultrasound also said that she could see that she would probably have a bit of hair as well.  It never ceases to amaze me that they can get images and information like this.

Getting a closer glimpse of our baby girl has us so excited to have her.  It just makes it that much more real when you see how developed they are and can start to put a face to the name and belly movements.  Of course, we still have a bunch of stuff we need to get, so hopefully she gives a little more time to prepare.  Not to mention poor Ali who is freaking out because she’s trying to make some blankets for us and what was supposed to be 6 weeks to be able to finish them seemed like it was going to shrink to 6 days or even 6 hours.   I doubt it will be 6 more weeks, but hopefully we have at least a couple more weeks to make all the final preparations.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

We’ve already had our practice round, so hopefully the next time things act up it will be for real.  At least now we know right where to go.  Although next time we may ask if there’s another doctor available that doesn’t look like one of our siblings.