On this very night...

10 years ago... along the same stretch of road...
in a dense fog... just like this...

Just kidding - a little Large Marge humor from back in the day.  It was on this night ten years ago that I was in labor with Ethan.  I was supposed to be induced the morning of January 11th.  I had been having frequent contractions (and by frequent, I mean every 3-5 minutes, though they would slow down and then start up again - it was great fun) for weeks.  In fact, on December 23rd, we went to the hospital and the nurse checked me and told me we were having a baby that night.  I was so excited.  I was not so excited when no further progress was made and we were sent home the next day.  All I wanted was to have him out and in my arms.  Which is EXACTLY the feeling I am having about my sweet Sena right about now.  Obviously, I will not be physically birthing her, but the desire to have this process complete and have her physically with us is exactly the same - except I have been "pregnant" with her for almost twice the duration of a regular pregnancy.  In my foolishness early on in the process, I recall telling someone how adoption would have to be so much easier than giving birth since there was no morning sickness (I have had heart sickness instead), no weight gain (yeah, right!), no hormonal fluctuations (only emotional fluctuations which might actually be worse than hormonal ones), etc.  I WAS WRONG.  SO SO SO WRONG.   But I digress.  At 6:00pm on January 10, 2001, Jack was playing on the piano that he had received for Christmas and we were waiting for Daddy to get home.  The phone rang and it was the hospital telling me that I was supposed to be there.  My doctor had failed to mention that to me.  They like to do a little treatment with some magical gel that helps make the cervix favorable (sorry if that is TMI) the night before the induction.  The nurse told me we would then come home and sleep and come back the following morning.  That sounded good to me.  I called John and filled him in and he came right home.  We stopped for a burger on the way and by 7pm we were at the hospital.  We had already made several trips to the hospital in the previous three weeks for monitoring of contractions with all of our gear in tow (because I certainly didn't want to go and have it be the real deal and not have the video camera) and had been sent home each time.  This time, of course, we didn't bring anything because we would be coming home.  Or not.  The minute the gel was placed, mama was begging for pain relief and Ethan arrived less than five hours later.  Who knew?!  The moral of this story is that we might have had a Christmas baby had I gone to the hospital unprepared on December 23.  Furthermore, since I haven't been able to bring myself to put the finishing touches on our packing because that would mean that I think we will be going to Ethiopia in the very near future, that might mean we will actually be going because I will be unprepared and scrambling at the last minute.  And if that makes any sense to you, then you are likely one of my fellow mamas who are also trying to navigate this tricky position we find ourselves in.  And since I am rambling, I will stop and leave you with these photos of my birthday boy:

Then...

..and now