Thursday, May 17, 2012

Moving Day

Moving Day was set for October 22, 1998, which was ten days before my due date with Daniel.  Lots of my friends said I was crazy to move so close to my due date ("I would never do that!"), but that was just the way things worked out, and I thought they actually would do it if they got to move into such a beautiful new house!  I was so thankful we were going to be in our new home before Daniel was born, and not after.  Besides, Diane had been nine days late, so I wasn't too concerned about Daniel being born early.  I was absolutely huge (Daniel ended up being my biggest baby!  He was one ounce shy of nine pounds!), and so my sweet husband did all the packing.  I know, he's pretty great!  

However, what did concern me was when I talked to the owners of our soon-to-be house a few days before moving day, and they said they hadn't even started packing yet!  What?!?  I didn't think that sounded too good, but when I mentioned it to Jeremy he said not to worry about it, that it was their job to pack their house and they could do it their way, which, of course, was true.  "And," he pointed out, "what can we do about it anyway?"  Men!  They're just always so logical!

We, on the other hand, were packed and ready to move several days in advance.  That's just how excited we were!  So, on the morning of October 22 we were up bright and early, and we loaded our moving truck.  It was a short move, because our new house was just about two blocks away from our rental house!  Jeremy's dad had come to help us move everything, and we were set to take possession of our new house at 10:00 AM!  I was so excited, I could hardly wait until 10:00!

We pulled up at the house right at 10, and imagine our horror when we walked into our new house and saw that all their furniture and household items were still there!  Pictures were even still hanging on the wall!  Oh my, that was not the best sight for an almost nine-month pregnant Mama on moving day! All I wanted to do was move all our things into our new house, but how could we do that when all their things were still there?  I almost started crying, and I really didn't handle it too well (I completely blame the pregnancy for this, of course!).  I held it together in front of the family, but when Jeremy and I went into a room to talk privately, I told him all the things I wanted to do, which was basically to move into our new house now, not later!  


Jeremy very patiently explained that we would just have to help them pack and load up their entire house (and garage, by the way!), and then once that was done we could unload our moving truck.  "We have the truck all day," he said, as if that was something positive.  To me there was nothing positive about this situation, and once again I was thinking how men are just so logical!  But, the thing was, he was right (Drat!) and that was really all we could do.  So, we started helping them pack.  They didn't even have boxes.  We happened to have a big roll of sturdy black trash bags, so we packed their entire house in those trash bags.  Can you believe that?  Dishes and everything!  It had to be terrible for them when they were unpacking.  Jeremy and I later decided that it probably took them at least four months to unpack.  So, we got them moved out, and then we got to move in, which was what I had been waiting for all day.  

Now, the entire time we had been planning and talking about this move, I said one thing, "I just want to have the kitchen completely set up before Daniel is born."  A woman needs a functioning kitchen, especially with a new baby, and I didn't want my little sweetie coming until my kitchen was all unpacked and ready to use!  I didn't care about the rest of the house, but I wanted that kitchen to be done!


Of course I didn't get to work on that on moving day (another thing I was distraught about), with all that had occurred.  But, I began working on that kitchen on and off all day our second day in our new home, which was October 23rd.  Of course, I kept getting interrupted with other things that needed to be put away, et cetera, but towards that evening I really got to focus on it.  Around 10:30 PM that night I put the last dish in the cabinet, the last can of food in the pantry, the last pan in the drawer.  Satisfaction!  The kitchen was done, and I was completely exhausted!


Here's a little information you may not have known about Jeremy and me.  I am a stage-person, which means I like to do things in stages, and rest in between those stages.  Jeremy, on the other hand, is not a stage person.  He likes to start something and work on it until it is completely finished, no matter how long it takes.  No breaks, nothing...just work until you are done.  So, usually we are a pretty good balance for each other, but not this night.  I think we were both just tired.


I walked into the living room, where Jeremy was working on unpacking boxes, and told him I had finished the kitchen (Yea!) and was ready to go to bed.  His quick reply was, "Why don't we finish unpacking the living room first?"


Well, you can probably somewhat imagine how that went over with me, an almost nine-month pregnant woman.  I was completely exhausted, and all I wanted to do was go to bed, together, in our new room.  And, all he wanted to do was finish unpacking the living room.  So, I sweetly went off to bed.  Oh wait, that wasn't how it went.  I stomped off to bed, and he continued working on the living room.  I wasn't too happy with him about not coming to bed with me, but I was so, so tired, I laid down and fell right to sleep.  It was after 11:00, and the last two days had been a lot of work.


Can you guess what happened from here?  Well, I woke up not even two hours later, really needing to go to the bathroom.  I went into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, and my water broke!  Yep, my water broke!  I walked out to the living room, where Jeremy was still working, and flatly said to him, "My water just broke.  We have to go to the hospital."


Now, women aren't as logical as men, so in my mind, it was Jeremy's fault that my water broke.  If only he would have come to bed with me like I wanted him to do, my water wouldn't have broken!  Ha!  I'm sure no other women has ever thought this illogically, but that's what I thought!  And, my next thought was, "Hey, at least I got the kitchen done!"


So, we called some friends of ours to come watch Diane, got a bunch of towels to sit on the seat of our car (because of the trickling water that wouldn't stop), and headed to the hospital.  Praise the Lord, He is just so good and so merciful!  We got set up in our hospital room, looked at each other, and decided we better not be mad about the unpacking-thing since I was about to have our baby, so we made up pretty quickly!  And, Jeremy was a wonderful coach and helped me so much with that labor.  My precious step-mom, Maggie, also helped me so much with that labor.  I don't know what I would have done without them both, because Daniel was so big, and I had a lot of back labor with him.  And, I wanted to have him naturally, without medicine, like I had done with Diane, so I did.  And, God blessed us, and Daniel was born a little after 8:00 AM on the morning of October 24, 1998, just two days after we moved into our new home.

No comments:

Post a Comment