Dear Brooke Allen

After our little pep talk yesterday, you got a little antsy.

Luckily, your daddy was home last night to help me get through it. He's doing a Spanish class for work yesterday and today, so he's not on regular shift.

You scared him real bad.

We met at Taco Bell for dinner, and then headed to Publix for grocery shopping.

We were in the frozen foods when I felt the first few contractions. By the time we got to the cheese aisle, I was having to stop walking and breathe through them.

I told your daddy, "Get the ground beef - 93/7 - I'm going to the bathroom."

Once we got all the food in the car, we went home and he unloaded everything for me. I honestly don't know how I would have done this without him.

I laid on the couch and opened the app on my phone that times contractions. They weren't very consistent - 3 minutes apart, then 10 minutes apart, then 6 minutes, then 18.

But they HURT. They were so intense that I couldn't talk. I could only breathe.

Your daddy came over and rubbed my back for about 20 minutes and watched the contraction timer like a hawk. Then he said, "Do we need to call the doctor?"

"No, they're not close enough yet."

"How close do they need to be?"

"The doctor says 5 minutes apart, lasting at least one minute for one hour."

"Well, do I need to put the car seat in?"

"It wouldn't hurt."

So off he goes.

"I think I'm going to go ahead and install the extra base in my truck, too."

"That sounds good, baby."

Off he goes again.

"Do we need this yet?" holding the car seat for when you're bigger, still in the box.

"No, not until she outgrows the pumpkin seat."

"Ok then I'm going to put this in the garage."

"Ok. That's great."

"I'm going to put the stroller in the garage, too. We won't need that for a while"

"Ok, baby."

Then, he disappears into the nursery and doesn't come out for some time.

I pick myself up off the couch - no easy feat, mind you, because every big movement causes another contraction - and mosey into the nursery.

I find your daddy folding your receiving blankets that I had washed over the weekend.

"Hey babe, what are you doing?"

"I don't think you're going to make it to this weekend. We need to get things ready."

So I showed him all the things I had done in the nursery on Sunday while he was at work. He put together the monitors that I couldn't figure out while I folded all your little clothes that I had washed. He had lots of questions about what certain things were and how they worked - the Boppy pillow, swaddling blankets, scratch mittens, Nap Nanny.

His deer in the headlights look that he'd been sporting for a few hours began to wane as I sat down in your rocker and explained these things to him.

"Are you scared, Ben?"

"A little."

"There's no need to be scared. I don't know what I'm doing either."

Last night is possibly one of my favorite nights with your daddy of all time.

He cannot wait to be your daddy. He loves you so much already.