Ruby Friday...

So my sweetie friend Stacy was a lifer. A Pregnancy Lifer, anyway, or so we thought until this past Thursday night. See, she was POSITIVE she was going to be pregnant FOREVAH with their third baby. Thursday night at 6:56 pm, our phone rang, and it was Stacy, "Yeah, well, we're going to go to the hospital" (read the non-excited tone in her voice--they'd been four times prior in pre-term labor). But there was definitely something different in her voice this time; maybe it was nervousness, maybe it was anticipation. Whatever it was, I knew that this would be THE night.

I should interject here that Stacy was graciously going to allow me in the delivery room with her and her husband due to the fact that I'd had two babies the using the surgical method (i.e. flat on your back, covered in a sheet, while people use instruments to remove said baby) and I'd never witnessed a "Push Em Out, Push Em Out, Waaaay Out" birth. Mike and I sat through the evening most likely watching football, although I can't really remember and no phone call. Then, behold...at 10:31, the phone rang. It was her hubby, "We're going to the fourth floor. Wanna come"?

I got dressed probably quicker than anyone has EVER and drove through the dark coastal Virginia night to the hospital only to wait in the waiting room with TWO screaming children until 11:30 pm because Pregnancy Lifer was getting her epidural. Now, WHO in their RIGHT MIND brings a ONE YEAR OLD to a maternity waiting room at darn-near-MIDNIGHT to witness the miracle of his screaming mother bring his sibling into this world? Holy smokes. Said child was EXHAUSTED. His aunt was CHASING him around the waiting room and three women whose water had just broken while he cackled into the Fox News Channel filled room. Anyway, I digress...

We thought Stacy would deliver relatively quickly because her other two had come shootin out of her like bullets out of Annie Oakley's gun. Not this stubborn baby. After 5 hours of no sleep, ice chips, vomit, poor hubby trying to sleep in a chair, iv's, internal monitors, Turbutalain, Pitocin, rapid heart beats, water breaking and taking guesses at what the baby's weight would be, at approximately 4:01 am, Stacey started pushing...

and at 4:09 am, a little face was staring at me while I watched her amazing mama push her the rest of the way into this world. It. Was. Spectacular.

Ruby Eileen weighed a healthy 8 lbs, 2 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. And she was TICKED OFF. She was MOST unhappy to have to come out of her nice warm sauna and she made sure everyone knew it. Mike always joked that she would have to be born on a Tuesday so he could call her "Ruby Tuesday". Sorry honey. She was most definitely a Ruby Friday.

I walked out of the hospital at dawn to go home and promptly called her Daddy. I'm sure he thought I forgot something. Not really. I just wanted to tell him to be sure and tell Ruby that it snowed on the VERY early morning she was born. It never, hardly ever snows here. Just another miracle to add to the one God had given her mommy, daddy, and me by letting me witness her birth thirty minutes before.