When you start something, finish it, right? Here’s a post I started before Enoch came. I have done my best not to edit my original writing: it’s comin’ at ya live. I believe this makes the parts written in the hospital a little funnier.

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At thirty-nine weeks along I should be preparing for the inevitable by working to clear out my grade book of its many “prewrite” assignments, fiction first drafts, and “Treasure Hunts.” Instead I decided to diversify by just starting my next blog post. It has been my goal to start writing them again, no matter how weary I get of sitting at my computer. Grading papers would be smarter, but this will make me feel better.

Leaving my little brain fallow all summer has given me a lot of fun ideas. I have several different topics to explore, but for all I know this post will be a prenatal one-off, so I might as well stream-of-conscious the whole thing and hope for the best.

Rothenbuhler babies are appearing at alarming rates and they will dominate the world! A simple fact, a forgone conclusion since 1982, but nobody is more excited to see it finally start happening than we are. My son is and shall remain a Lilly, but that hardly seems to matter. We definitely feel we’ve created an army when so far its only face is our angelic little koala bear, Rose.

11/4: Let us begin the captain’s log. I doubt baby could possibly come on this date, but if he arrived tomorrow, I would be happy to celebrate his birthday on Bonfire Night. This would have nothing to do with V for Vendetta…I saw that movie too late, and as Derek says, it “didn’t age well.” Couldn’t take the alliteration. My reasons for liking the date are more protestant and pyromaniacal. Also – and Elisabeth makes fun of me for this – but when a date involves some prime numbers, I like for it to go ahead and be all prime numbers, hence my wedding date.

11/5: Shocker! We passed up the chance for Guy Fawkes Night. Fine; I just signed on to substitute teach a couple of classes tomorrow morning and visit the Denver Art Museum on Friday anyway. Today I discovered when trying to pre-register at my hospital online that the system can’t even process someone with no employer phone number to enter for their non-employment-related insurance (designated as such). Now that is a high-tech time saver. Foiled! I will just have to wait and physically write “N/A” in that box on the actual paperwork while in labor, and incredibly, I bet nobody will tell me no. Tomorrow is laundry day, so I can start another project to slowly phase out my beautiful newfound maternity wardrobe in the next three weeks or so. No pediatrician lined up yet, but I must wait on Derek for plan information. I did take care of my need for freshly painted toes: purple. It might have to last me a while. Most pressing of all, I am out of Grape Nuts and bananas.

11/6: What even happened today? Not baby. Substituting went very well, at least. Like teaching one’s own class, but less pressure to make everybody perform well.

11/7: Derek would rather not share our “getting together” date with the boy, but I think it would be cute. ‘Twas six years after the November 7th that Derek and I became an item when I went in for my weekly appointment and the ol’ tummy measured small again. My last growth scan over this concern was over a month ago, so they scheduled a growth scan for tomorrow morning. Argh! I feel more confident now that he is fine, settling down and getting ready to arrive.

11/8: This is Lilly, Anna (22yrs) reporting from where her wristband so identifies her, on an exercise ball at St. Joseph’s hospital. We were getting ready to take Derek to work in the morning so I would have the car for my ultrasound when things…began to take a turn. I drove to the outbuilding where I make my clinic visits and waited outside with an especially delicious Dazbog chai latte until the magical hour of 8am. Happily, I dropped in at the clinic instead of waiting for the nurse midwife appointment at 9:00 – they sent me right to OB triage on the 4th floor, and here I remain. All is calm, all is luxe and has me wondering about the bill. They have actual movies and TV for free, though! So we can watch the Nuggets game we planned to watch at the parents’ tonight.

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…Yeah, we watched the Nuggets game. They won, I think in overtime. I do not remember too well because I had not yet received my epidural. Ay chihuahua.

So Enoch Smith Lilly was to arrive the next morning, 11/9/19, admittedly on a really good date (prime numbers unnecessary). He came sooner than I actually expected; somehow I didn’t think labor would just happen to me, especially before it was due. It was that very Thursday they had started going over my options for induction. In the end, the only Pitocin this bird got was to slow down the contractions on Friday night before they tucked me in with my epidural and my Foley and my lavender essential oil diffusing into the room so I could sleep a little through my progress from “six” to “ten” (real Gs know what that means). In the end, little angel Snufkin spent three hours refusing to turn his 87th percentile head just a few degrees to freedom and this bird did not lay her egg, either – also unexpected.

“Despair thy charm; And let the angel whom thou still hast serv’d Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d.”

Macbeth V.VIII.XVII-XX

That was Macduff talking, but when they wheeled me in for my C-section and I talked my anesthesiologist’s ear off the entire time, I mixed him up with Banquo. Figures, I only have a BA in that stuff. The facts I gave him about the name Enoch, however, I got right. Mr. Anesthesia was probably just being nice, but the man took an interest in the Hall of Faith and old Hebrew, and I was grateful for his distracting me – as well as his morphine. I thought I was making very funny jokes in there while they sliced and diced. Derek was not so amused, but I tried to warn him against looking behind the curtain so his lack of humor was not really my fault.

Next I should tell the world about Eno’s adventures in the NICU and his stunna shades. For now I will quit while I’m ahead!

(Psalm 118)