Grandmotherhood Rapidly Approacheth

Ed's cell phone rang at about 2:30 this morning. (Mine was off; otherwise, it would've been the one ringing.) Our daughter's in the early stages of labor! I'm so excited!

Becky and her husband, Li (Lionel), timed her contractions at 8 to 10 minutes apart. Because this is her first pregnancy and it's high risk (she has rheumatoid arthritis, which, thankfully, has been in remission during her pregnancy), her doctor told her to go to the hospital to get checked out. She was told that her cervix is dilated 1 cm and that her contractions had sped up, being only 5 to 6 minutes apart. The doc told her to go home and rest (ha!) and to go back to the hospital when she wasn't smiling during contractions but when the contractions are painful enough that she can't talk. She was positively giddy on the phone. Yes, her contractions are painful, she says, but they remind her that she'll be meeting her child soon, so that makes her grin.

I know it could be 24 hours or even more before my first grandchild actually arrives, but I haven't been back to sleep yet, and I doubt I'll get much work done today or tomorrow.

Cross your fingers that everything goes so swiftly and so well that Becky gets to walk across the stage Friday afternoon, carrying her baby, to accept her master's degree diploma. As determined as the women in our family are, she just might manage it. ;-)


Updated at approximately 9 a.m.: Becky and Li are back at the hospital to stay. Her contractions are now Very Big Deals, but Li says she's still grinning between times.


Updated at approximately noon: Becky's laboring away in a labor room at the hospital; Li has his cell phone at the ready to keep both families updated. After I talked to Li, he passed the phone to Becky. She's been dozing between contractions, and she sounds tired. I could hear the baby's heartbeat, amplified by a fetal monitor, in the background. Becky says the baby's rolling all over the place. I've told Li and Becky that Ed and I won't show up until the baby's coming down the pike, so that they won't feel that we're hovering. But of course, I volunteered to drive on over (the hospital's about 40 minutes from here) the moment that Li calls and says they would like me there. I'm getting not a bit of work done today. I've already made arrangements for my in-laws to watch our sons after school today and have faxed driving directions to the hospital over to my husband at work, so we're free to head over there whenever it's time.


Updated at 2:25 p.m.: Li just called and said, "It's go time! Please come on over to the hospital. Becky wants you both here." And so off I go now, charging southwest across Long Island, while Ed charges off from Long Island's far east end, heading west.


Updated at 8:58 p.m.: Just got back home and am still not yet a grandmother. Though Becky has been laboring away, the baby's not any closer to making an appearance. The obstetrician has broken Becky's waters in an effort to speed things along, as she's been in labor for more than 18 hours now and is rather exhausted. Ed and I are back home with our boys (the 12-year-old and 5-year-old uncles-to-be) for the night. I did get in a good amount of massaging Becky's back and legs before we had to leave. We'll probably get a middle-of-the-night call pronouncing us grandparents.




Becky daughter Li pregnancy labor birth grandmother EditorMom