Five years ago today I was at home. I had the day off from my job at the car lot. I stayed pretty tired, but loved working at my job. I busied myself that day by cleaning and organizing. I wasn't in a terrible hurry though. The next day, which was a Friday, I would be 37 weeks pregnant. That meant I had three weeks left of carrying my first baby. Or so I thought.
Trad was working 2nd shift at WalMart. He got home a little after ten. There was an eclipse, or partial eclipse or something going on with the moon. I can't remember exactly what. We went outside on the back deck and watched it then we headed to bed. I had traded days with Manda and I had to work the next day.
I woke up about 1 am with some pain. It wasn't terribly bad, but I went ahead and got out of bed so I wouldn't disturb Trad. It came and went, but wasn't regular. I was sure it was Braxton Hicks contractions. After all, I still had 3 weeks left. Nothing I did eased the discomfort I was feeling.
I finally woke Trad up around 3am. He called MTMC around 4am and spoke to a nurse in labor and delivery. She told him that as long as the contractions weren't regular I wasn't in labor. Her advice was for me to get a shower and try to relax. By this time I was in quite a bit more pain and didn't have the faintest want for a shower. I told him he probably should start packing a bag. I hadn't got it packed yet because I still had 3 weeks left.
We left our house a little before 6am. On a normal day, it was an hour drive to Murfreesboro from where we lived. I was steadily in more pain as time was passing, but my contractions were still not regular and I was sure that we were going to make the trip for nothing.
My water broke in Centertown. I was in much more pain after that. That is probably around the time that I made it clear that Trad was going to have to drive as fast as he possibly could. I am not sure how many times he told me not to push, or how many times I did push. Not pushing was a whole lot harder than pushing at this point.
We made it to the hospital in about 45 minutes. He dropped me off at the front door, which we were told would be open at 6am, then he went to park. It was not open and I had to walk all the way around to the emergency room entrance. I had one contraction halfway there. I got some stares for it, but I really didn't care. He found a wheelchair outside the ER and wheeled me in. The ladies at the desk called up to labor and delivery to let them know I was there. I had another contraction while I was sitting there. No one was coming to get me. When I had my second contraction sitting there about 2 minutes later, the nurse grabbed my wheelchair and started running with me.
It was at this point that I had gotten scared. I thought to myself, something is very wrong or she wouldn't be running with me. The thought had never crossed my mind that I was in actual labor. Even after my water had broke, it didn't register with me. After all, I still had 3 freakin weeks left!!
She got me up to labor and delivery where everyone was just standing around talking. They got me in a room and about 10 nurses were in there with me. They couldn't find my chart where I had pre-registered, so they had to ask me a gazillion questions. Some of them were ripping off my clothes. They got me on a bed and a dr appeared. Amazingly enough, my dr was in the hospital and was on his way up. I heard one ask about an i.v. and another one say there was no time. The dr I didn't know that was just the stand-in was holding back my baby's head while my dr was getting his gear on. He pretty much just sat down and caught him. All this happened in the space of 10 minutes.
I gave birth to my first son, Braden Trad, on May 16, 2003 at 7:04 am. He weighed 6 lb 15 oz and was 19 inches long. He was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen. Now, 5 years later, we have been through so much with him-3 operations, and autism diagnosis, school, speech and ot and countless doctor's visits. He is a very special child and I am a very lucky mother to have him as my son.
Braden's cake. 
This is a picture of us singing "Happy Birthday" to Braden. He didn't blow out his candle. Maybe next year!!
Braden got a set of train tracks from Grandma & Grandpa
Nikki as Peter Pan (just kidding)
