It was very hard to rest or concentrate throughout the day. By mid-morning I asked my son if he would like to go to the beach to swim. We decided to eat lunch and then head down. The program director was already down there enjoying some time off after running the singles retreat over the weekend. I told her I needed something to do to get my mind off the fact that this baby hadn’t been born yet. It was a gorgeous day and perfect for late August swimming (picture is from another day)

By supper time I asked Laura if she was hanging in there. She replied that she’d been having a lot more Braxton Hicks contractions during the day and that she was beginning to wonder if they were real. They’d been happening for over an hour and were currently ten minutes apart. This was a fantastic and promising sign.

By 7’o clock she had been having contractions for three straight hours. I told the boys they were going to grandma’s tonight as was the plan for when we left for Nebraska. The boys had to do a two mile run on the bike trail so everyone had left at one point to do that. I tried to stay and sleep but again was unable to relax fully into sleep. Earlier in the day I had finished straightening the other side of our room and had my clothes fully sorted. I slowly packed our bag to be ready to leave soon.

Josh and I drove with a plan to at least get halfway. We didn’t say much on the first 3 1/2 hour leg of the trip. We snacked and commented on things here and there. We both were looking forward to getting to the hotel and not being up the entire night if such a thing could be avoided. We had not heard any updates from Ethan.

But at about ten minutes to midnight he texted and said they were getting ready to go to the hospital. Laura’s parents were about an hour ahead of us on the trip and were planning to drive all the way to Lincoln where the baby was to be born. When we heard they were going in it was decided that we had to keep going into the night to make it to Lincoln. I had gotten about ten minutes of sleep before his text and was greatly refreshed knowing that the process had been set into motion.