On Friday May 29, I taught my last day of school for the foreseeable future. I have sure enjoyed being with my 3rd graders over the last 7 years! The kids left at noon that day, and I spent the rest of the afternoon (with some helpers – not such a good idea for a 9-month pregnant lady to be running and climbing everywhere!) taking my classroom apart. I had to sort stuff into 3 piles – keep, leave for the new teacher replacing me, and try to get rid of in my garage sale. Here's some pictures of all the stuff I had to get rid of! Plus, I had an entire bookshelf full of books that I couldn't keep...
Monday June 1st was my last contract day of work. They paid us for one last day to come in and clean everything up. That morning, I had a teacher garage sale. I invited everyone to come see what I had that they might want and just pay what they thought would be a fair price. I made $150 but didn’t get rid of nearly everything, so I started giving it away for free! People were wandering in and out the whole day while I cleaned out my files. Here's what the classroom looked like by the end of the day:
I stayed until about 6:00 that evening and had almost everything done and cleaned up. However, I had already made 4 trips out to my car, and I didn’t want to stay later than that. I decided to just come back the next day for another hour or so and then be completely done with my classroom. I thought it worked out perfectly and that I would then have 2 weeks or so to get everything organized and ready for the baby! What I didn't know was that this candid shot with a fellow teacher would be my last pregnant picture (at least with Aidan)!
I drove home and walked in around 6:30. I came and sat on the couch by Mike. We talked for about 10 minutes, and all of the sudden I felt some wet stuff that I didn't expect! I looked at Mike with huge eyes and told him that I thought my water broke! He didn't believe me at first, but after a minute or two was convinced. I was of course a little panicked – I wasn’t due for 2 ½ weeks! We went to the hospital so they could check everything out. The doctor seemed a little skeptical at first - he said it's very uncommon for first time mothers to have their water break so early with no contractions. However, when he checked, he told me that I needed to stay in the hospital until our little one arrived!
I hadn't even packed my hospital bag yet, so poor Mike had to run home and try to get everything for me. He came back around 11:00. The doctor told me to get as much sleep as I could, so I slept fitfully through the night. The monitor said I was having contractions, but I didn't feel any still. They never became consistent, so at 6 the next morning they started me on pitocin.
Labor isn't fun.
Beforehand, I wasn't sure if I would get an epidural. I figured yes, but have had some experiences with -caine drugs that didn't work well, so I was worried that an epidural wouldn't even be effective. Yeah, by 11:00 in the morning I was only at a 3 and was in a LOT of pain. I asked for the epidural! It did take the anesthesiologist 3 tries to find a level in my spine that would work. As a result, I had a huge bruise on my back that didn't go away for about a week. But thankfully, the epidural worked wonders! As soon as it was done, I slept for 2 hours! I didn't feel a thing! When I woke up, Mike was like, "That's a really big contraction!" And I was like, "Oh, I'm having one? I didn't know that!" It was also wonderful to wake up and be fully dilated! MUCH better than being awake and feeling the labor! :)
The doctor had hoped that I would have Aidan after 5:00 so they wouldn't have to cancel a bunch of regular office visits, but at 1:45 or so I told the nurse that she needed to call the doctor. He walked in, took one look, and got his gown on. Sure enough, at 2:17, Aidan Blake Steele was born!
Again, sorry if it's a repeat, and sorry it's such old news, but now you know how our kiddo got here!
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