Day After Thanksgiving

Casey Thomas Carrigan was born the day after Thanksgiving 1982. In that year, the date was November 26th, but in my mind Casey's birthday must always be the day after Thanksgiving, and here's why --

SPOILER ALERT: If you don't like to hear women tell about their birth stories (which we all love to do), go ahead and skip the rest of this post.

I had been having mild contractions on and off for a couple weeks, but no real labor. At my doctor's appointment the day before Thanksgiving, he told me I was 4 cm dilated! My water hadn't broken and I still wasn't in active labor, so the doctor gave me a choice -- to go ahead and induce labor that day, or to wait until my body decided to do it on its own, which would probably happen within 24 hours. I decided to wait. (Not the choice I would make now, but ...) He said if I didn't go into labor by Friday morning, to come on into the hospital and they would induce labor.

Thanksgiving day went on as usual, and even though we all assumed I'd go into labor, I didn't. My birth "coach" went out hunting that day. He called me when they came in for dinner, to see if it was time yet. It wasn't. (That's a whole 'nother story. I was planning to use hypnosis for pain control, which was actually my therapist's idea, since he used hypnosis as part of his psychology practice. So he was going to be with me during my labor.) 

So, Friday morning came and I went to the hospital. The doctor met me there and broke the water. I was pretty big through my whole pregnancy -- people kept asking me if I was having twins. Well, during labor we found out why I was so big: There must have been 2 or 3 gallons of amniotic fluid in there! That baby was swimming! When the doctor ruptured the membrane, water gushed out and got him soaking wet! Then later on in the day, a whole bunch of water gushed out again, soaked the bed and ran over onto the floor. I had to sit in a chair while they mopped it up. (Not only that, but it was pouring down rain outside all day long. Casey just hydroplaned into this world.)

Okay, to make a long story even longer... Casey was finally born a little after 5:00 in the afternoon.

Isn't he just the cutest thing?