Philip's Birth Adventure

First, the announcement for those who may not have seen: Philip McLeland Nickles was born 12/16/2010 at 1:46 pm. He weighed 9 lbs even and measured 20 3/4 in. long.

Tuesday, 12/14 - Appointment with doctor. Everything looked fine, and she seemed indifferent regarding an induction at that point. While I had an overall good induction experience with Lydia, I wanted to avoid that with Philip. However, the weather was weighing heavily on my mind. The previous weekend, we had a few inches of snow - it wasn't too bad, but, at the worst of it, going to the hospital would have been difficult and getting the kids to SC would've been even more so. Sad to say, the weather motivated me to schedule an induction for 12/17 (I wanted 12/16, but it was unavailable :) ).

Wednesday, 12/15 - Stephen and Lydia go to Greenville that afternoon. Lee and I decide to have a date night - dinner at Nick and Nate's (I have the spicy Kickin' Chicken sandwich in my last effort to move things along) and a movie (Harry Potter!). We drove home through wintry mix and slushy roads.

Thursday, 12/16 - c. 4 am, I awake with back pain - walking, water, etc have no effect. I was thinking this was it! By 6:00, I can no longer walk around and get my last minute things done. My contractions' strength and spacing are such that I decide to call at 7:30 and not wait for the office to open; midwife calls back and tells me to head to hospital.

8:00 or so, Lee has loaded and warmed car, and helps me over the super slick ice that is our yard to car. That's when we looked at the road and saw ice! Not thin, difficult-to-see ice, but thick ice that Lee could break into large chunks. Our road has quite a slope; icy slopes and our vehicles don't mix. The temp was almost 32 at this point.

Lee shovels the road - I think mainly to have something to do - until he realizes there's no way. I call Labor and Delivery and tell the nurse that we're not on our way and then lie down to try to slow things down.

Around 10:00 - Lee sees that road's ice is beginning to melt but will still be a while. He decides to call 911.

15 minutes later - The Cullowhee rescue squad begins to arrive. Very quickly there are least 5 male strangers around me in my living room listening to me talk about my contractions.

Soon after that - 4wd ambulance arrives. By this point, I definitely need help walking outside. Two people help me to the ambulance. Meanwhile, Lee is scrambling to move essential bags from the car to the ambulance. Lee rode in the front, but I must have asked 5 times whether he was there - we were NOT leaving without him!

On the way down our road - Lee realizes that the traffic resulting from our 911 call cleared our road enough for him to drive down in our car. Oh well.

11:00 - We arrive at the hospital. I am 7cm dilated. Labor continues naturally (another blog post to follow).

1:46 pm - Philip McLeland Nickles is born!! Whew!