The day before Maya was born, Mac and I went on a lovely walk around the Patuxent Wildlife Reserve in Laurel, MD. We had spent much of the weekend finishing getting ready for baby. I had cleaned the house from top to bottom for what I figured was the last time before the baby. Mac finished the co-sleeper attachment for our bed (henceforth referred to as "the sidecar"). On Sunday the 28th, we picked up the birthing tub from our birth assistant and stopped at the second-hand store for some spare sheets. Finally, we made our way to the nature reserve for some outdoor togetherness time.
We have a history of making major life decisions on long walks outdoors and have cherished hiking as an opportunity to really focus on each other -- no cell phones, no email, no other people -- and take stock of where we are and what makes us happy. On this particular walk, we inevitably found ourselves talking about how our life would change in the coming weeks and what excited or frightened us about the impending birth. We also decided that if the baby hadn't come yet, we'd find a way to fit in a walk during the following weekend as well.
Back home that evening, I found that I didn't have the energy to tackle the pie I'd been planning to make (we had a whole cooked pumpkin to deal with) and that brownies were more my speed. Mac joined me halfway through brownie making to read aloud in the kitchen and just after putting the brownies into the oven, I felt pressure, a pop, and a gush . . . my water had broken.
