At around 4 am on November 22nd, 2010 I woke up and thought that I might need to go to the bathroom. I stood up and whoooosh (just like the movies) I felt the water run down my legs. I made it to the bathroom and grabbed a hand towel - nope. Soaked. Finally, I grab my cell phone, get down on the floor and stick a bath towel between my legs and call Grant 7 at Eastern Maine Medical Center. I had just seen Dr. Lebowitz two days ago and was armed and ready with the phone number and my chart in case something happened over the weekend.
When the nurse said hello, I stopped in my tracks. It wasn't just a hello - it was hello in a thick, probably Texan drawl. "Oh yes...." I remembered - today was the first day in the nurse's strike at EMMC. Gene and I had chuckled a little bit about the poor souls that might have a baby on these two days when ALL the nurses in the hospital were on strike. There was much press about the folks that they flew into Bangor from all over the country to work so that the hospital could continue to run. And today was the first day of the strike.
What can you do? My next call was to Auntie Lisa and Uncle Mark - "It's time!" I said, and let them know we would need to drop off a sleepy Noah on the way to the hospital.
Here was the email that I sent the next day:
Eli Russell Schaff arrived on
Monday, November 22, 2010 at 9:56 am
7 lbs, 7 oz 20 1/2 inches
Three weeks early!
A surprise at 4:45 am when my water broke.....
...a quick drive to Bangor (Noah got off at Auntie Lisa and Uncle Mark's house)
brought us to the day of the nurse's strike at Eastern Maine Medical Center.
Our nurses were from Tennessee, Texas, New York, Arkansas and Kansas!
We came home on Thanksgiving Day.
So much to be thankful for!
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