Well, I wanted to follow up my last blog entry with the story of the birth of my second grandchild! Here are some pertinent facts to get us started: My son and his wife live about 1 1/2 hours away, the hospital is 2 hours away. My daughter-in-law's due date was January 27th. We are all (her family and ours) die-hard Steeler fans!
When the Steelers won the AFC championship, Betsy just looked at my son and said - "Well, we now know what day the baby will arrive!" -of course presuming Super Bowl Sunday - February 1st. We all thought - no way! But as the day grew closer, the nagging thought kept entering our minds.
Low and behold - about 8:00 or so in the morning on Super Bowl Sunday the phone rings. It's BJ telling us they are on their way to the hospital and would call us when they knew for certain "this was it" (unforunately, they had a couple false alarms before this day). He called mid morning to say that yes, this was it but it would probaby be a while. We chose to stay home for now and got regular updates.
Let me back up for a moment to explain a few other things - I was supposed to go to Washington DC this Sunday afternoon for REALTOR meetings over the next couple days and would watch the Super Bowl in a room with hundreds of my "closest REALTOR friends" on a big screen and Bill was going to be home alone watching on our 50 inch flat screen. A couple days before we had loaded him up on food and beveages so he was all set and my bag was packed. We figured the baby would probably come sometime during the game and didn't want to be on the road listening on the radio and also we wanted to be present at the hospital to offer whatever support we could! (For those of you who read the blog on the birth of my first grandson - I waited in the Waiting Room the entire time - I told my son and his wife, if they wanted me in the room with them I would be happy to be there - but would only venture back if I was invited!) So, we traded in our large screens TV's for the AT MOST 20 inch screen in the hospital waiting room!
We thought about driving separately and I would then drive on to DC while he returnd home after the birth of our grandson. The longer she went through the day without a lot of progress, the more I realized that it wasn't going to happen in a timely basis Sunday evening and I would not have felt comfortable leaving town while they "labored" - pun intended! So, needless to say, I cancelled my hotel reservations in DC, left my overnight bag at home and we drove down together. We left the house about 2:30ish so we would get to the hospital in time for the start of the game - we even packed some snacks and beverages (non-alcoholic, of course) so we could "tailgate" in the waiting room. Thankfully the only people in the waiting room the entire time were us, her sister and niece who drove up from Virginia and her parents who came into town from Ohio. They had all arrived much earlier in the day.
As halftime approached, she was still no where close to being ready to go. Our son asked if we would drive to their place and walk their dog and his in-laws dog who was dropped there much earlier. They had both been locked up in the house pretty much all day. He said we could watch the second half there and he would call to give us updates. So - as soon a half time arrived we raced to the car so we could get to their house in time for the 3rd quarter to begin. We arrive with the 3rd quarter JUST getting underway - I pull out my keys (as my son had sworn to me he gave me a key-that story to come later) and, can you guess where this is going....... I did not have a key. Oh, I had lots of keys - just none that worked in their door. Needless to say, Bill is not amused. As we listened on the radio and try whatever keys I can find, I can hear the grumbling...... Finally, he said - get in the car! We found a local Hooters about 5 minutes away - we walked into the restaurant just in time to see the field goal attempt where the Cardinal player ran over our holder so we got a new set of downs.
I have to also pause here to say that I have been in a couple different Hooters over the years and I know my husband has been in a few more than me. While there were probably 20-30 TV's in the entire restaurant, there wasn't a single television with a clear picture. Either they had lines in them, was too dark, too light or too green or something. Oh well -it was better than listening on the radio.
Well, you all know what happened in the game so I don't have to go over that part of the story - Whew!
After the game was over, we trekked back to the hospital - by this time it's probably about 10:30ish or so.... Well, we wait around a couple more hours. It gets to be about 1:30 AM - All I can say is it's a good thing the Steelers won as it would have been heartbreaking to watch those highligts of the game over and over and over again if we had lost!! With her labor still not progressing very far or very fast, this time our son gave us HIS key and sent us back to their place to walk the dogs and he would keep up posted. So off we go back down the highway to their place. We arrive and the key works!! Thank goodness! HOWEVER, the dog which belongs to the in-laws - doesn't know us and won't come to me so I can put her on the leash. Instead she runs all over the house - upstairs and down while peeing as she goes!! Finally, we just open the door (heck, it's 2:00 in the morning - like anyone is going to notice!) and step out of the way and out run both of the dogs. After we spend a little time corralling the dogs, back inside we go and I spend the next twenty minutes cleaning up after the dog who peed as she ran!
Bill lays down on the sofa and I laid back in the recliner while watching more of the same highlights. About 3:00 am I get a text message telling me they were preping Betsy for a c-section soon. I text back "how soon?" He text back "10 minutes". So - since it's a 30 minute trek - I wake Bill, we throw cold water in our faces and off to the hospital we go. When we arrive, the baby is born and everyone is doing fine. Since Betsy's parents were staying for a few days and sleeping at our son's place, we had already determined ealier in the day we were going to drive on home. However, we wanted to wait until we could see the baby and Betsy. By now, it's 4:00 am. So we wait.....and wait..... In went her parents.....we wait.....and we wait....in goes her sister and niece.....and we wait.....and we wait.....I think it was 5:30 or so until we finally got to go in to say hi and see the new little guy! We ooohed and aaahed for a few minutes or so and then said - We're going home! Love you all but we need some sleep! When I Left the hospital around 6:00 am Monday morning - I thought - "Boy, I could now be on my way to DC for meetings!" That would have been good. I don't think they would have appreciated my snoring during the meeting! I'm not a coffee drinker so was drinking diet coke as quickly as I could so I would stay awake driving home! Needless to say, I also spent time eating mints, cracking the window for fresh air and, of course, listening to the radio for more sports talk highlights of the game.
Back home we went -called into the office to tell everyone about our new grandson and not to look for us in the office so we could catch up on our sleep! As we did with the first grandchild, we had a bottle of champagne waiting for us to celebrate the expansion of our famiy - but once again, we decided to wait until the following evening to enjoy it instead of when we arrived home at 8:00 in the morning!
Here is William Nolan, my Groundhog Day Baby instead of my Super Bowl Baby!
And here is my little guy just a couple weeks ago!
We just had a family gathering over Mother's Day week-end at our house - Son, wife and grandson, daughter and grandson, my parents and Bill's Mom. When we invited his Mom - she said she would be delighted to come visit - but she didn't care about Bill and I or HER grandkids - she wanted to see the great-grandkids!! I guess I can understand how she feels!
Have a great day everyone! Enjoy your family as they are important!
