Curly - A Birth Story

It was August 2008, and it was hot. We were in need of a serious diversion. At just over 8 months pregnant, I was tired and maybe more than a little bit ornery. Sport had just started Kindergarten and we had spent the afternoon filming a little play that he had come up with for the Reflections contest. Reflections is a program sponsored by the PTA. To encourage creativity, they come up with a theme every year (like this year it is “Diversity Means…”) and the kids can enter in eight different categories. My kids love this contest and have even placed first in the state, but that’s a different story for another time.

So Sport’s cute little play was about when his baby brother was going to be born. We had been talking about filming it all summer, but at my house it’s hard to get to anything that isn’t absolutely required. For his play he needed to get the first half done before the baby was born. After we finished with that, I decided that with only three and a half weeks to go, maybe I’d better pack a bag for the hospital.

Wall E Boy

The kids had been whining to see the new Disney movie that had recently come out…Wall E. You know, taking this clan to the movies costs a small fortune even without popcorn and drinks, but the summer was nearly over (way past over for the little kids) and one last hoo-rah seemed in order. So we loaded all the kids in the van and headed for our local theater.

Bossy and her family met us there and we were lucky enough to get seats for our huge group to sit together. I was uncomfortable. Scout kept climbing up on me until my sweetie finally took her onto his lap where she promptly fell asleep. I was not impressed with the movie and I squirmed miserably in my seat. Not even the popcorn helped.

It was late when we left the theater and we said “Goodbye” to Bossy and drove straight home. We sent the kids to bed and headed to our own room. I was in serious need of sleep although I don’t know anyone who actually sleeps during that last month. I was not concerned about the little pains I was having since I often have contractions during the last couple of months of a pregnancy. I had not had a baby come on its own since Teach was born in 1991. She was Number 4 and now I was on Number 11.

I woke up pretty much every hour on the hour to use the potty. I didn’t even need the light. But after an uncontrolled trickle, I was suddenly wide-awake. It wasn’t much and there were no regular contractions. Could that have been my water breaking? When it broke with my first two, I knew it immediately. It gushed! But this was nothing like that. I crawled back in bed and snuggled up to my sweetie, but my eyes refused to close.

After an hour, I finally woke him up and told him what had happened. It was around 4:00 AM and everyone else in the house was still snoozing. He didn’t believe it was anything, but like the good sport that he is, he pulled on his clothes and agreed to drive me downtown to the hospital. He picked up my newly-packed bag and I followed him down the stairs. We stopped by Gym Rat’s room to whisper that we were leaving and he was in charge. He rolled over sleepily but agreed. Soon we were racing down the quiet freeway to the hospital.

Like with Baby Doll, it took them a couple of hours and some very uncomfortable tests to confirm that my water had actually broken. Hours and hours and lots of Pitocin later, my sweet little Curly had arrived. As you can see, he was tiny and cute. Me?…not so much. And we finished Sport’s video on the day I returned from the hospital. Curly was two days old. Sport didn’t win the state competition that year, but he got pretty close.