We spent the weekend in Claremore for Brian's missionary farewell. He leaves tomorrow for the MTC , then its off to New Zealand!! We are so excited for him and so blessed to have the experience of having a missionary in the family!
Yesterday was his farewell talk and open house, and the day started off pretty normal. Portia had been running a fever a bit the day before, but yesterday morning, she ate breakfast and acted fine as we got ready for church. It was at church that all the magic happened.
As sacrament meeting started, Portia sat very quietly and still. Usually she doesn't really sit quietly and still. I thought "Maybe it's because church is at a different time than normal and she's in a different place. I'm not going to complain." A few minutes later, Brian began his talk (and did wonderfully) and Portia wanted nothing more than to sit on my lap and snug. She really doesn't do that, especially not in church. She tried to fall asleep several times, and when her baby sister started kicking her from the inside, I handed Portia to Brandon. She snugged daddy for the rest of Sacrament meeting, and we realized that we were probably going to have to leave church early. She obviously wasn't feeling well.
As the closing prayer ended, Brandon stood up, still holding Portia in his arms. Then she threw up. All over Brandon. ALL OVER HIM. It was really bad. He ran out of the chapel and to a bathroom, cleaned her and himself up as much as possible, and we left.
The rest of the day, Brandon and I took turns taking care of Throw-up McGee and helping to get ready for the open house. It was then that I started to feel some teeny tiny contractions. I am now 37 weeks along, and dropped a few days ago, so naturally I thought that this was the very beginnings of labor. I was a little excited; maybe I was finally finished with being pregnant! But at the same time, I was a bit nervous because we were a 2 hour car ride away from my doctor and hospital. My stress level was a-climbing.
The open house was a lot of fun, and had a great turnout. There are a ton of people who love Brian! The house was packed, and I spent most of my time outside on the back porch, in varying levels of discomfort. Portia started to act like she was feeling better, and ate a bit of fruit. The worst was behind us, or so we thought.
We hung out for a few more hours, and it was time to head home. As we loaded up the car, Portia fell asleep and I mentally prepared myself for possibly delivering my own child while driving down the highway. We drove for about 20 minutes and were about to leave Tulsa, when Portia threw up yet again. It was worse than during church. Brandon hurried and pulled over at a gas station, and we spent the next hour trying to clean the carseat and child with just baby wipes and paper towels. We got everything as clean as possible, and started on the road again, and I lost it. I started bawling.
I was so tired and stressed, and I couldn't believe this was happening to me. How on earth was I going to take care of a sick baby while giving birth to another one on the side of the highway?!? I cried for quite a while and Brandon told me everything would be fine. I started to calm down; he was right. Portia would feel better after a good night's rest, we had plenty of time to get home before I started really laboring.
My almost-contractions had started to slow down, and I was finally starting to relax when the highway patrolman pulled us over. I lost it again. He pulled us over because one of our headlights doesn't shine right and sometimes looks like it's out. The poor guy walked up the the car and took one look at me and probably wanted to quit his job. I was bawling again, mascara flowing, not even trying to be discreet. He immediately let us off with a warning and sprinted back to his car. Brandon calmed me down again, and back on the road we went. We finally got home, bathed Portia and ourselves (we smelled pretty bad), and went to bed.
We fell asleep before our heads hit the pillow, it was quite the adventure.
And to top it all off, I never really went into labor.
