Honey......I think my water broke!!!

This morning at 5:40am I woke up to get a jump on the day. I had a couple of last minute things to take care of before Tuesday's trip to the hospital. As I was drying off from my shower I noticed fluid trickling down my leg. I thought, "Uh, oh..." and waddled to the door of our bedroom to get Damien's attention across the house to the guest room where he was sleeping. (He couldn't get sleep with my prego snoring!)

"honey?.....Honey?......HONEY!" I said, each time a little louder, "I think my water broke!". "What do you mean, you THINK?!" Damien replied, jumping out of bed. Well, it was pretty apparent it had, so I started to think about what to do next. We called the doctor's office and spoke with the doctor on call and she said to get to the hospital soon. I asked her if we were to be in a hurry and she said just get there in the next hour or so. Great, I thought, I can hop back into the shower and shave my legs since I didn't do it earlier.

I then called my dad to ask him to "tend" the house because I had scheduled people to come and clean it at 9:00am. Luckily, he answered the phone and was able to help us so we didn't miss the appointment. I then called my mom to let her know what had happened. She then hopped in her car and drove from Corvallis to the hospital. We left the house at about 7:08am and were on our way to the hospital (showered, shaved, and blown dry hair.....priorities, right?).

To get my mind off of the drive to the hospital (rush hour traffic was light) I started making calls to family. I wasn't feeling contractions, little did I know I was actually having them, so I was relatively calm leaving messages on the phone. We were able to use the hospital's valet service, so we had "front door" service. Damien wheeled me up to the 5th floor to the Wilcox Women's Pavillion at Good Samaritan Hospital.

After we settled in our room, my doctor came in and "assessed" the situation. I still wasn't dialated very much and with a large baby, we all decided to proceed with a planned c-section. Apparently the first of the month is a very busy day to have babies, because we had to wait in "line" for an operating room to open up. During the wait, Damien got dressed in scrubs and I made a couple more phone calls. The atmosphere was great, we were laughing and having a good time between contractions which did get stronger as time passed. Around 11:00am (I think), I was wheeled (in the bed I was in) to the operating room where I received a spinal and was "prepped" for surgery.

By 12:16pm, Monday, May 1, 2006, Isabelle Ionna Macielinski was born weighing in at 9 pounds, 9 ounces, and 21 inches long. Once the surgery was finished, we all went to the recovery room where I was able to hold my baby girl for the first time. We had a wonderful skin-to-skin bonding experience and she breastfed for the first time. Once I could wiggle a toe we were moved back to our room with a beautiful view of Mt. St. Helens.