My First Week - Part One

Prelude to My Arrival
So, Mom's last day of work was on Friday December 2. There was a nice party at work where she was quite surprised! Then she went to pick up Uncle Jay at the airport (JFK). Uncle Jay came into to town to help Dad out with the second floor renovations ... i.e., my nursery! Uncle Pete came by on Saturday morning and while Mom was out getting her haircut ... SURPRISE!!!! Aunt Julie, Uncle John and Cousin Merin showed up all the way from Bethesda!!!! How cool was that? Everyone was there to help out with my room! It was pretty awesome.

After everyone left on Sunday, Mom and Dad took Uncle Jay out to JFK and Mom started having contractions. They had their last date as non-parents on their way back home. On Monday, Mom had contractions all day but was in a severe state of denial. She woke up and worked on her beloved case from home for the first three hours of the morning. Then, she cleaned the house from top to bottom. Talk about nesting instinct! Then, she went shopping in anticipation of an upcoming snowstorm to buy rock salt and a shovel at Home Depot. Dad got home and saw the chart that she had made of her contractions and he went bonkers! Time for the hospital!!!

Tuesday - December 6, 2005 (My Birthday!)
Mom and Dad called Aunt Dotty (Di Ut) and Grandma (Ba Ngoai) at one o'clock in the morning to tell them that that they were on the way to the hospital!!! Di Ut and Ba Ngoai planned their own "Amazing Race" to my birth for the next morning! They hoped that they'd be able to make it to Jersey before me.

My folks arrived at the hospital at 2:30 a.m. Mom got her first ride in a wheelchair. Little did she know that this would just be the first in a string of many firsts for her in the next week . . . first IV, first epidural, first operation, first child . . .

At 6:00 a.m., Dad called Aunt Julie & Uncle John. Aunt Julie must have known because she answered the phone right away! Despite a snowy snowy day up and down I-95, Aunt Julie and Uncle John packed up and headed right up to Jersey. They got there just in time to see Mom before her C-section.

I was born at 2:27 p.m. and the rest is history.