Early

Location: home
Time of day: before dawn
Atmosphere: sleepy

Portrait of a pregnant wife waking her husband from his slumber.

"We're good to go", she says. As I come fully awake, she clarifies that they're ready for us to be at the hospital for our 6am appointment. She had woken up at 5am and called to confirm they could take us at our scheduled time. I didn't even know she'd gotten out of bed!

I wasn't only tired because it was early, though that definitely contributed, Miriam had crawled into bed with me a few hours earlier woken by a nightmare. I listened to her recount the terrible events of her dream. "My friend, Rachel, was there. We were at my cousins house, and the lights went out on the spinning tree!", she hurriedly whispered. She snuggled in with me and soon after fell back asleep. I put her back in her bed a few minutes after that.

Getting ready to go the hospital wasn't too bad since we had everything packed up and ready to go the night before. A nice side-effect of having a scheduled inducement is that you don't have to worry about being in panic mode. We were able to get ready, without rushing, and say goodbye to Miriam.

We promised to wake her up before we left so we could do hugs and kisses. Sam had already started the process when I got back into the room after grabbing my computer bag. Miriam was all teary-eyed and sad that we had to go. I'm thankful we had the luxury to be able to sit and talk with her for a few minutes to help her process her feelings.

I caught a glimpse of my Dad talking with Sam. He got up early, even though he came home late, so he could see her off.

And we're off to the hospital.