A Ride to Remember - Volume II

I've been here before and it turned out okay.

That's what I kept telling myself yesterday, my heart pounding, as I drove up I-65 north to Baptist Hospital.  Around noon, I had called Jude to see how her day was going, only to learn she had come home from work because she wasn't feeling well.  What was most disturbing was she hadn't felt the baby moving much all morning.  She was laying down, trying to get a "kick count."

"Forget the kick count," I said.  "Call Roseann (our doctor) and see what she says you should do."  When Jude immediately agreed to call Roseann, I really began to worry, given that she's probably the only person on the face of the earth more stubborn than me.  Within minutes, Jude called me back and said Roseann's nurse, Gena, has told her to go to the hospital.  "Here we go," I thought.

I cancelled my afternoon appointments, got in my truck and immediately got stuck in traffic trying to leave downtown Franklin and get to the interstate.  When I finally got on I-65, I accelerated rapidly, then looked in my rearview mirror and saw a City of Franklin police cruiser behind me in the far right lane (deja vous all over again, I thought).  I slowed down and breathed a sigh of relief as the police cruiser exited at Cool Springs Boulevard.

I saw Jude's Honda Pilot on the 3rd floor of the parking garage at Baptist Hospital when I arrived and I parked nearby.  I walked inside and stopped by the registration desk, where the attendant quickly gave me Jude's room number and waved me back to triage.  As I walked back, I silently prayed for Jude and our baby, asking (begging, really) for them to be okay.

As I arrived at the door to the hospital room she was in, I paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and walked in.  The first sound I heard was our baby's heartbeat, loud and strong.  And what a beautiful sound it was!  I smiled at Jude and the nurse, exhaled and relaxed just a bit.  Together, we watched the fetal heart monitor and saw that Jude was having some contractions (which is pretty normal, actually, at this stage of the game).

After 45 minutes or so, we were discharged from the hospital.  Soon.  Very soon, I think, this baby is going to make his debut.  And I suspect it will be before February 21.