Let's start at the very beginning...

...a very good place to start!

If you know that musical reference you get 5 cool points.  I would award you awesome points, but that was a pretty easy one.

OK, so lets face it.  I lost my post.  I am not looking forward to typing the whole thing again, but here goes!

The last real post I wrote left off with the whole family sick.  We spent 3 full weeks flat on our back.  It was awful.  By Saturday the 11th everyone was FINALLY starting to feel better, though I was still coughing and feeling absolutely exhausted.  What I REALLY (with all my heart) wanted to do was spend a few more days in my PJs resting and trying to get better.  BUT because everyone else was feeling better and I was on the upswing, the obsessive compulsive side of my personality was in overdrive.  I wanted to get the house clean.  Like I said we had been flat on our backs, SUPER sick and so there was lots of laundry and scrubbing of bathrooms/mopping/vacuuming/bleach wiping down/spraying with Lysol disinfectant spray that I felt needed to be done to get the germs OUT and get the house ready for the baby to come.  I thought I still had a week or so left before the baby came and in my mind I thought, "OK, I will try and get everything off my 'to do list' this weekend and THEN I can spend a few days relaxing/getting well and rested before the baby comes, without the dreaded list hanging over my head".

So we spent all morning and most of the afternoon cleaning. A pretty major cleaning overhaul. Probably way more physical labor than I should have put my body through. The girls were really good while Matt and I were busy wiping down fan blades and disinfecting door handles (etc) so as soon as the cleaning was done that late afternoon we decided to make gingerbread houses with them. I will also admit that this was something that had been on my holiday 'list' and I was really tired (understatement) and didn't necessarily feel like doing it, but I wanted to cross it off my list. Yes, not very 'super mom' of me to admit, but its true. And actually the girls had SO much fun, and so did we. I wasn't up for making gingerbread, so we just used graham crackers.

 

As soon as we were done we got the girls dressed (like we'd let them near all that frosting dressed!) and headed to our church Christmas party.  Once again I will admit that I really didn't want to go (at all-see the previous comments re; tired, sick, pregnant), but I went.  We didn't get home and get the girls down until after 9, and then Matt and I were up pretty late finishing putting away laundry, etc.

The next day we got up, got every member of the family showered, fed, dressed and got to church (albeit 15 minutes late) at 9 am.  I was really worn out and had mild contractions all night long and all throughout the day.  I didn't get much sleep due to said contractions, which I attributed to completely overdoing it the day before.  What I really wanted to do after feeding the girls and getting them down for naps after church was take a nap myself, I felt kinda like the walking dead at this point, however, we were having a big family party at our house that night and my mother in law asked me to help her set stuff up and also make dessert for the get together. 

So after I did that I headed upstairs. At this point Matt had been trying to sleep because he had to work that night, but I came in and decided I had better pack up my hospital bag. It was the last thing on the 'list' for the week. So Matt got up and helped me pack up most of my bag (except the last minute things), while packing I got a text from my brother saying that he was only a few minutes away (he normally is more than an half hour's drive across the city), so he stopped by to hang out for a while and I didn't get a nap. He didn't stay very long, but by the time he left the girls were up and within 15 minutes of him being gone Matt's family members started showing up.

We had a pretty good family party, though we had some people unable to come last minute, which was sad. I still felt pretty bad and was having lots of contractions, but was trying really hard to act upbeat and normal and kind of forcing myself to be involved, since we hardly ever see some of Matt's cousins and I really love them. Though I was secretly lusting after the thought of my bed upstairs.

At about a quarter to 7, I felt a change in my contractions.  The kind that stop feeling like they are "practice" ones that aren't doing much and start feeling like they could be the real thing.  After a couple of those I excused myself to go to the bathroom and snuck upstairs.  I sent a text to Matt letting him know what was up and I called my mom and told her to pack a bag, because it was possibly going to happen tonight.  The contractions were coming about every 2-4 minutes, but they were only lasting about 40 seconds, so I wanted to wait and see if they would get stronger/longer and make sure they didn't end up going away.  Also, I REALLY didn't want to have to announce to all the people at the party that I might be in labor in case I was wrong.

After being upstairs for about 20 minutes I knew that I needed to get the girls upstairs and in bed ASAP, but there was NO way I was going to be able to climb down the stairs, chase them down and haul them back up.  So I yelled down and Matt's brother Barry rounded them up and lifted them over the gate and sent them up to me.  I was SOOOO grateful for this.  THANKS BARRY (although I don't think you read this...).  At this point I was was 75% sure that I was in labor, but wasn't ready to announce it to a whole house full of guests!

I got the girls down and then packed up the rest of my last minute hospital stuff, then laid down to see if the contractions would go away.  A little after 9, I decided that I probably ought to let my mother in law know that I was probably going to need her to drive me to the hospital in the next hour or 2.  A few families had left the party and there were only a couple left, so though I still felt silly hollering down form the landing..."Ummm, just so you know I might be in labor, so Martha, if you could just be aware and ready to take me to the hospital if the contractions get stronger, or don't go away after another hour, that would be great".  Well, that of course generated a lot of excitement, and after a few minutes all the remaining guests cleared out so that we could leave to go to the hospital if necessary.

A little after 10, I decided (and really Matt demanded) that since the contractions were still about 2-3 minutes apart we should leave for the hospital (where he already was, since he was working).

Well, this blog is long enough for now, I will save the hospital side of the story for the next post!  At least now, it won't seem so overwhelming.  Last time I blogged all this, plus the birth, hospital, and first few days home before it was lost.  Now I am breaking it up so that it doesn't seem like such a daunting task to cover it all.  Especially now that I have Christmas to post about too!  Anyway, I will type that post up within the next day or so probably!  I am going to try and get all caught up over the next week or so!  So if you cared enough to read this whole boring 'catch-up' post, you probably care enough to check back soon!  Thanks for reading!  I hope you had a happy holiday!