ETA on Parenthood: 15 hours and 37 minutes

October 10th, 2022 was quite a special day for our friends, family, my beautiful fiancé, and myself. It’s all started at 8 a.m. when Julia (my fiancé) yelled for me to come downstairs. When I saw her, she was on her hands and knees with her face pressed into one of the recliners. At that moment I believed it was go time.

With preconceived notions or ideas on what contractions felt like, she did not think they were the real deal. Radiating back pain, cramps, and nausea at first. Those signs and symptoms were happening every 10–15 minutes at that point. Thankfully we were getting ready to head to the OB/GYNS office for Julia’s 40th week check up, so we had a bunch to talk about and ask.

The signs and symptoms begun to appear more frequently so we called the doctors office. Our plan following the conversation was to come into the office and to start timing out these symptoms. During this time, Julia wasn’t feeling well and the pain was unbearable for those moments.

Once we got into the car, Julia was so uncomfortable but we knew we had to stick with the plan. I drove, she told me when the symptoms started, I counted, and then she told me when they stopped. Keeping mental notes of everything so we could tell the doctor. On the car ride to the doctors, Julia was basically slouching in the seat beside me trying to find some form of comfort. At this time, Julia still didn’t believe she was having contractions.