Ditte's delivery (Jeremy's perspective)

I suppose I ought to write something about my wife's recent delivery. As most of y'all know, Ditte is not your typical pregnant woman. No offense to any pregnant women who fit the typical mold, but man am I grateful Ditte isn't like that! She doesn't get moody (anymore than normal :) ) she doesn't have any crazy cravings like pickles and mocha ice cream in the middle of the night, she doesn't get that attitude of "I'm pregnant so I can't do _______" (I know there are some restrictions for pregnant women, settle down!) in fact I often catch her doing way too much! On top of it all, she is really, really blessed to have good deliveries.

It's amazing that they do actually get cuter.

So, I was at work on Thursday afternoon (I think crawling in someone's attic) when I get a call from Ditte. Nothing out of the ordinary, she asks how I doing and if I have any idea when I might be home. Then she casually throws out there that "we might need to go to the hospital tonight, but I'm just gonna relax for a little bit, and we probably won't have to go after all." I ask her if she needs me home right now, and she responds, "No, just finish whatever you're doing and if you are able to get off on time, go ahead and come home." I ask her again to make sure there wasn't a hidden meaning behind what she just said and she assured me there wasn't.
I get home pretty close to off on time, and she's piddling around the house picking stuff up and cleaning the kitchen up a little, nothing out of the ordinary. I asked how she was doing and she mentioned that she was having some contractions that were coming in pretty good, but she was fine otherwise. So I went about my business playing with the kids, etc. She went ahead and asked the kids to get their suitcase ready, just in case. I'm watching Ditte and she just isn't acting like I remember her acting right before the other kids were born, so I didn't think anything was going to happen that night. I was kind of bummed because I didn't want to go to work the next day. All of us were watching some TV and she mentions how we should probably go to the hospital tonight, again, very casually. I asked her when she wanted to go, and she said she would call her mom to see when she was going to be home. I probably should have taken more careful note at this point, but the guy in me obviously was kicked into the "duh gear" and it wasn't changing into another gear very easily. Over the next 10 or 15 minutes I noticed she was getting a little snappy with the kids. I was worn out from the day, it was a pretty warm one for us and I was working in Thousand Oaks crawling in some attics, so I was just kind of staring at the wall in space cadet mode.
"I think we should to go to the hospital pretty soon." "Do I have time to take a shower first?" "If you hurry!" I started thinking that something was serious. My mind was then forced into about 3rd or 4th gear and husband mode finally kicked in. (Yes, I took a shower and it was a quick one! Would you want your sticky stinky husband leaning all over you while in delivery? That's what I thought.) We threw the kids and their stuff in the car and off we went to gramma's house.
Because it was after 8pm, we had to enter the hospital through the emergency room, which they had totally changed around since the last time we were there. Yes, I asked her if she wanted a wheelchair and she said no. She wanted to keep walking for as long as possible to keep the labor and delivery as short as possible. After almost getting lost on the first floor of the hospital, we found our way to the elevators and up to the womens unit where they were expecting her.
After I tied up her sexy hospital gown, they hooked her up to the monitors and "I was able to tell her when she was having a contraction, with only about a 5-7 second delay!" I was pretty proud of myself. The hospital had gotten more tech savvy and had a computer monitor with both heart rates and the contractions on the same screen (with the other kids it was a continuos paper read out). One of the coolest things they had was an iHome! I brought the ipod in case Ditte wanted to listen to some music to help her concentrate, and much to my surprise and excitement a full on dock station for the ipod! I seriously showed it everyone that came to visit, and even some of the nurses didn't even know what it was! Back to the delivery.
When she got checked just after 9pm, she was around 5cm. When the doctor got there about 30-45 min later, she was around 8cm.
Some background here, Stephan & Marnie Lovstedt are really good friends of ours, and our Wyatt and their Penny were born on the same day, a year apart. We obviously set up an arranged marriage between them. So when we told them a while back that we were pregnant, they told us that they were also and the due dates were within 3 days of each other! So of course, it was planned from that minute forward that not only would our kids be born on the same day, but if they were opposite sexes, they would be married also! Isn't it just convenient as parents to make plans like that for your kids? Well, we just have it all figured out.
As Ditte was progressing, I kept whispering in her ear that she had to wait til after midnight, so that Scotty would not only be born on our 10 year anniversay, it would give Marnie more of a chance to have the kids on the same day. I got some laughs from her at first, but then she gave me the look like, "it's not funny anymore, and I am not going to hold it until midnight!"
Ditte got to a point where she was having to concentrate on breathing when the contractions came. Right about 9cm she had to do a few "hee hee hoo" breathing techniques. She looked at me a few minutes later and told me to tell the nurse, she was going to push on the next contraction. (For those that don't know, Ditte doesn't take any drugs). The doctor and the nurses came right on in, and within 2 contractions, Scotty jumped out and started crawling around looking for some toys to play with!
In all honesty, Ditte is an amazing woman! I don't think thats news to a lot of you, but I don't think a lot you know how amazing she is! I love her so much and am very proud of her for doing so well. Not only for the pregnancy and delivering of our children, but just how she deals with 3 kids at home all day! I feel like screaming into my pillow with dealing with all 3 kids all day! We really do have good kids, but when you get 1 or 2 of them in a bad mood, forget about it! Logic and common sense get thrown out the window and then forms this emotional roller coaster going through out our house. Is it the two older girls that emit this emotion all over our house? Anyway, I'm glad that I do have a few weeks to be at home and help out where I can. There are some benefits to working in Corporate America!