When I went to the waiting area to get Amanda’s family, Nick and Amy Warkentien showed up along with Eli, who was coming to try to get a peek at yet another potential future girlfriend. I took Amanda’s parents and brother back first, then grandparents, then the Warkentien clan.
Amanda was completely different on the epidural and hardly looked stressed at all. She gave it a good effort without, and if the had kept progressing like she should have I think she’d have done a fine job of going natural.
After everybody visited, Amanda and I crashed. I slept for a while, maybe an hour or two, and I feel like I could sleep for another day.
As things stand, the doctor said we’ll have a baby one way or another by the time his shift ends in the morning. Amanda was given some pitocin and the contractions are larger and more consistent, which is good. They’re going to move her, turn her over to a different position, at 9:00 and see how things are then. The nurse, a different Jane, says she is hopeful that we’ll have a baby by midnight. If there’s not a lot of change by 9:30 then we’ll talk about options. We’re trying to avoid having a Caesarean.
I called my dad so he could update my family. He said they’re coming back from Kentucky tomorrow or Monday, depending on Milly. Given what I told him, I expect that’ll be tomorrow. I then called Barry Frazelle to let him know what was going on. His daughter, Hannah, has been one of the most excited people about this birth, but she’s going to California with the UNCW surf team tomorrow morning. We wanted to let them know that they can come by no matter what the time is once Milly’s ready for visiting. We don’t want to make Hannah wait an extra week.
Nick, Earl and Michael went to the house and brought back a few things for us, as well as returning our dogs, Bruce and Harvey, from Nick and Amy’s back to our own house. Everyone is still here but Phil, who headed back to Richlands because he’s got to teach a Sunday school class tomorrow. Peggy plans on staying until the baby is here, but Earl figures at some point they’ll leave and come back. Amy went to a baby shower and Nick currently has no ride. Really cool of him to stick around. There’s a lot up in the air right now.
I’m going to take another nap to the sound of my daughter’s heartbeat.
Zach Dotsey