Thursday, May 01, 2008

Surprise Night of Adventure

Last night the women of our care group all got together to celebrate Lisa's birthday! What a blessing that all of the women in our group could be there. We sat around and had a chocolate fondue picnic (can you get any better than that?) and just had a wonderful time of food, fun, and fellowship. Here are some photos of the evening.


Back row from left: Roxanne, Shannon, Kendra, Lisa, Brittney, Adrian. Front row from left: Monica (Lisa's daughter), me, and Roxanne (who would like Isaac to call her "Gammy") :)


And a fun photo to end on! Lisa said I was straining, but she was quite light! :)

It wasn't just the chocolate fondue that made for an interesting day yesterday. The entire evening was quite an adventure. I might bore you if I tell you the story and for that reason I thought about leaving it out. But since the blog is as much for my recollections of years gone by as it is about entertaining you, I am going to tell it anyways! And besides, what else do I have to do today but work and blog. Goodness knows that there is no little baby here yet.

At nearly 7pm, I went to the hospital to pick up JB only to find out that he was stuck in a delivery. (Remember we only have one car.) Being as it was a surprise party, I didn't want to be late. So I called Tristan. Since the party was at his house, he was planning on getting out of dodge and hanging out with JB anyways. He said to head on over to the shower, and he'd pick up JB later and go get dinner.

Okay. Good. Got that figured out. So I get to gate on base to exit, and one of the guards comes out and tells me to stop and asks for my ID. After a few seconds of feeling like I was going to throw-up from nervousness and thinking of any possibly for something I could have done wrong, I ask her what the problem is. She then informs me that they have shut the base down and are not letting anyone out, but it has nothing to do with me. Could she have told me that to start with?! I was panicking as a ticket on base revokes your driving privileges for a set amount of time. (I think the first offense is a week!)

While I was sitting there, waiting for the base to reopen so I could leave, John calls. Since I was parked with the engine off and a line of cars building up behind me, I figured it was okay to talk on my phone. (Another no-no on base while driving.) It was JB. Where was I? He was done. I actually could see him outside the hospital, but the guard wouldn't allow me to go through or turnaround. "I guess you could walk here," I told him. So he took off walking to meet me at the gate.

When he was halfway to the car, the guard released us. She wouldn't let me turn around so I had to go to the other gate and reenter, scoop up JB, and exit.

Once I had JB, we decided that he should come with me to the party, since I was now already ten minutes late. I didn't want to ruin the surprise! He could then connect with Tristan and they could leave from there. John was not too happy about the idea of busting in on a party for women. He'd been on his feet all day and wanted to go home and change his clothes. But I really couldn't see another way as taking him home and then going to the party would have added twenty more minutes that I didn't have. So off we went.

Once at the party, John was, the only male. Tristan was nowhere to be found. When Shannon told JB Tristan was putting their boys to bed, JB quickly decided to go help him and not be the only man in a room full of women. He said he helped by reading Micah a shark book and was impressed when the little two-year-old knew all the sharks already!

I found out that the reason Lisa thought she was coming was to help plan my baby shower! Thus we decided I would greet her at the door and really confuse her. At first, I was a little taken aback. Everyone kept telling me, "Well you aren't supposed to be here." I finally figured out that that was because the "lie" had been they were getting together to plan my shower. Brittney joked that my shower may be a bust now. :)

Lisa was surprised. However, she had figured out I was inside beforehand. I had parked my car in the driveway. I didn't think she would recognize it, and she didn't. But she did spot the Dalmatian bobble head on the dashboard and instantly connected it to me. At that point she wasn't suspecting a surprise party but was upset that someone had accidentally invited me to the planning session for my own shower! Ha!

In the end, they pulled it off! Tristan and JB left to go get some wings, and we celebrated Lisa's birthday. I also managed to completely soak myself before the party started by stepping on a sprinkler head that turned on. Tristan thought this was hilarious! (I wasn't laughing nearly as hard.)

However, JB and Tristan's wing-night didn't last long. I get a call on my cell phone. First of all, my cell phone ringing causes my blood pressure to rise being as I wonder if it is Joan or Bri. But then JB quickly tells me, "Tristan and I are rushing to the hospital." Now if I think this out clearly, it is obvious that Tristan and JB would not be rushing to the hospital for Isaac's arrival. But I wasn't quite able to tell my mind that fast enough and started to get very excited. However, I quickly put two and two together and realized that they were rushing to the hospital on base.

All the residents have "DOPs" (duration of pregnancy). You are supposed to do ten of these by the time you finish residency. These are women who choose to have a resident deliver their baby in favor of getting to see the same doctor every time they come in and having that same doctor be the one to deliver their baby. They could choose to be seen in OB but that means that whoever is on call would deliver their baby. JB has a few DOPs right now but none of them are scheduled to deliver for a few months.

Well, Tristan's was scheduled last night. When they went to dinner, she was quite aways off from delivering so they thought they had plenty of time, but she advanced rapidly. So rapidly that they had to race to thospital and JB did the newborn resuscitation in his Iowa Cubs t-shirt, khaki shorts, and gym shoes! I got a kick out of this. Not even enough time for scrubs! Mom and baby are doing great.

Quite an eventful evening despite the fact that we did not get a call at any point announcing Isaac was on his way. We are now under a week. The good news is that as of today, our "May baby" will officially be born in the month of May so he and I will share a birthday month. :) Still waiting . . .

4 comments:

Iturblog said...

Great read Wendi, thanks for sharing! I'm so glad you ladies had a great night-so sorry I missed it! :( I love the pictures and I don't think you look like you're straining at all...I'm sure Lisa IS quite light! Looking forward to being HOME Saturday and thus back at CrossWay and caregroup next week! Have missed you all!

Wendi Kitsteiner said...

Megan, glad you saw this ... I'm sorry I should have mentioned that you weren't there ... but we know we'll have you back for good soon!

Anonymous said...

When I had Evan, our Dr. was in surgery on another woman. The nurses literally "held" Evan in for several minutes while the Dr. got out of surgey and came down the hall. Needless to say, this was not a pleasant experience for me. I always thought this was to be sure he could send me a bill.
Grandma tells a story about Grandpa's sister Agnes who got to the hospital and the dr. did not make it in time for the delivery. The nurses delivered the baby. Later, the dr. sent her a bill and she told him she would not be paying it since he was not there. LOL!
Linda

TAV said...

babies deliver themself all the time... in cars etc. :) who needs dr's? :)