Natalie's story

Part two of three for my birth stories for Michelle's contest

You can read the rules and DJ's story here Make sure that you comment on Michelle's blog if you decide to play along!

Jerry and I became engaged on Christmas 1994, and started planning our wedding for January 28th, 1996. Super Bowl XXX Sunday, the first Super Bowl to be held in the Valley of the Sun.

Um yeah what was I thinking?

Oh wait, it didn't happen after all! ;)

The week that college resumed in January 95, I ran into my adviser at Arizona State, and we got to talking about life, and how I had gotten engaged at Christmas. She then suggested that since we would be moving to Florida right after the wedding, couldn't we get married before my student teaching, so that I would have a better chance of getting hired in Florida?

So thats what we did, we moved our wedding date up by 7 months to July 8th 1995. Jerry moved to Florida in late April, and then traveled back to Arizona with his mom and sister a week before the wedding.

Jerry, Kelsey and I left Arizona for Florida on July 15th traveling down I-10 to I-20, stopping every 100 miles it felt like for either Kelsey to go to the bathroom, or for me to go. By the time we got to Jerry's mom's house in Mississippi I was tired all of the time, and miserable, sick to my stomach, miserable.

We spent a week in Mississippi meeting all of Jerry's family and friends, and then went on to our new lives in Florida.

A week later I took a pregnancy test, and sure enough it was positive.

A week after that Hurricane Erin hit Florida. Now I was born in Iowa and moved to the Phoenix desert when I was 9, I had never seen a hurricane, let alone been through one. Jerry slept through the whole thing. I was a nervous wreck.
A week after that I started my student teaching at the school on Eglin. Certain smells in the classroom would make me sick. My blood sugar would drop and I would get horrible headaches. I got dehydrated super easily. Fun, Fun.

This whole time sick at least once a day, if not more than once.

I guess I should invent another term for my sickness that I had with Natalie. It was all day long sickness, motion sickness, and depending on the smells sickness. Franks Franks at the BX was the WORST smell ever! I could not walk in the BX without getting sick.

Labor day weekend we were set to travel up to visit Jerry's family for the long weekend. About 45 miles from our house, I made Jerry stop the truck at the truck stop while I ran in and got sick. There was NO WAY we would make the entire 300 mile trip to his mom's.

A couple of weeks later the La-z-boy factory where Jerry's mom works hosted a family bbq, and we were able to complete the trip (even though I was MISERABLE).

The very next week, Hurricane Opal came barreling ashore. Jerry was called at 3 in the morning to go batten down the hatches at work. At about 5 in the morning he called and said that he had been released, get everything ready to head out to his moms house, the hurricane was at a category 5 and headed straight for the bay that we lived closest to. I threw a bunch of stuff into the walk in closet, more stuff into garbage bags and bundled up Kelsey and we were waiting at the door when Jerry pulled up to the house. (Still hating hurricanes).

Hurricane Opal shut down the main through fare from Ft. Walton Beach to Destin. Highway 98 on Okaloosa Island was wiped out. The only way to get to Destin suddenly was the Mid-bay Bridge, the turn off for which was 1/2 mile west of the turn off to our house off hwy 20. Our 20 minute trip from the base to our house quickly turned into 2 hours right after the hurricane. Remember the motion sickness problem I mentioned? Yeah I attempted to walk along side the truck several times in the stop and go traffic to keep from loosing whatever I had managed to eat.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, my pap smear had come back abnormal, and so did my second one. So they had me come in so they could do a different type of test, where they looked at everything a camera. It was pretty cool, but it aggravated my cervix.
So that was trip one to Labor and Delivery, full of iv's and shots.

Then about 2 weeks later, I was at work at the preschool and I started having really bad cramps. To the point where I had to sit down on the ground of the playground. Kelly, my supervisor called Jerry and back we went to the Labor and Delivery, again full of iv's and shots.

Repeat verse same as the first. A couple of times over the next 10 weeks.

At 33 weeks my doctor put me on house arrest. He was worried that I would not make it to 38 weeks and that they would have to send me to Pensacola to deliver before then. He told me that I did not have to be in bed all of the time, but I was not allowed to be on my feet for more than 5 minutes at a stretch. Which was interesting considering that we were trying to move onto the base during this time, and I had an almost 3 year old at home. (Oh and I still had "morning" sickness the entire time.)



April 8th, my due date came and went. By which time I had been allowed to return to work, and resume life as normal (at 37 weeks I was released). At my appointment where I was 41 weeks, my doctor told me that he was going to Texas for the week, and would induce me the following Friday if I had not had her by then.

Monday night, we went out to dinner at Applebees in town.

Tuesday morning Jerry woke up with the worst case of food poisoning. He was sick, sick, sick. Which made me sick, sick, sick.

About 1:30 in the morning on April 17th, I woke up with the worst cramps in my life. I woke Jerry up at about 2:30 and told him what was going on, and he told me it was a false alarm go back to sleep.

About 3:30 I called Labor and Delivery. They told me to drink 2 huge glasses of water, and take a warm bath (as long as I didn't think my water had broken).

By now Jerry was up playing a game on his computer, thinking it was still a false alarm, but he couldn't fall back asleep.

About 5:30 I thought my water broke, and I was hurting bad enough that I decided I was done. So I called L&D who told me to come on up and get checked.

We then got Kelsey up, and drove her across the base (7 miles from our house to theirs, 6 1/2 miles back towards our house to the hospital) to Kelly and Kevin's house. I walked in with Jerry and Kelsey and said hi to Kelly. Back in the car though I was MISERABLE! It hurt soooooo bad.

We got up to L&D at 6:40, and I was checked. Sure enough my water broke, but I was only at 4 cm. It looked to be a long wait.

The doctor on call for my doctor came in about 7:10 and checked me, by which time I told Jerry I was done give me drugs. The doctor said do you want the good news first or the bad news? Crap...

Good News, you are at 7-8 cm and it wont be long...

Bad News, you are at 7-8 cm and its too late to give you an epidural...

Oh and I am on my way to a meeting so I wont be up here probably to deliver you.

7:30 I was ready to push. The nurse and different doctor come in to check me and sure enough Natalie was crowning.

Now back in the day, Eglin did not have LDR rooms. You labored in one room, were pushed down a LONG hall to the delivery room to deliver, and then were pushed back to the first room to recover for a while before going to the maternity ward.

Jerry and the techs started pushing my bed down the hallway. The narrow hallway, where they had to move boom boxes, towel racks, and other assorted stuff out of the way to get me there. The nurse the whole time was telling me to go ahead and push. I looked at her and said you want to deliver this baby here in the hall? (Kelsey was born in 4 pushes). I remember the nurse laughing at me.

We get into the delivery room, where they are not set up yet, and the doctor looked at the nurse and said, "Patty was right, you didn't want her pushing in the hall, this baby is here, now." I remember her standing there ready to catch Natalie while the nurses and techs were still trying to drop the bottom of the bed and get everything set up.

Four real pushes later, Natalie was born at 7:55 am, April 17th, 1995.