Once upon a time….
there was a couple named Bob and Heather. Bob, Heather and Bryce went to Cortland, NY to stay with the inlaws for the weekend which also happened to be Halloween. Bob, Heather and the rest of the “kids” all went to a frat house Halloween party. Heather and her sisterinlaw Debbie dressed as fairies, Bob and his brothers, Scott and Sean, were a vampire, Frankenstein and some other random bloody creature. Bob and Heather got really drunk at the frat party.
2 weeks later Heather was feeling bloated. Bob and Heather were on their way his cousin Danny & Kristen’s wedding, when Heather asked Bob to stop at TOPS. At Tops, she bought a box of tampons, and a clearblue easy.
Sunday morning, Heather awoke with a start. She stared at the ceiling, and realized she didn’t feel any cramps. She didn’t feel crabby. She felt like she….really needed to pee. She grabbed the pregnancy test and shook her head. “There’s no way”. She peed on the stick, and immediately 2 bright, blue lines popped up. Forget 3 minutes, that test only needed 3 seconds.
Positive.
Heather took the test to Bob, who promptly asked, “who’s is it?”
Nice.
Needless to say, they decided to tell the rest of the family on Thanksgiving. Everyone was very excited for them, and Bryce thought it would be cool for his mom to have a baby. Of course, cool as in, “I hope it’s a boy.” Heather was trying not to get her hopes up, but she was really really really praying for a girl. Heather was sick of baseballs, dinosaurs, and trucks. Heather told Bob that if the baby was a girl, she wanted to name her Maeve. Bob did NOT like that name. He would nod and smile, but figured they had about 30 more weeks to find something else. They ended up making a deal, if the baby was a boy, Bob could name him. But if the baby was a girl- it would be Maeve.
On February 15th, 1999 Bob and Heather found out they were going to have Little Miss Maeve. They decided to let Bryce pick her middle name. Of course, giving that responsibility to a 4 year old would lead to only 1 thing.
He chose “Clarice”. It’s Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer’s girlfriend. He couldn’t say it properly, so he called Heather’s belly “ka-weese” so the name was done.
Maeve Careese.
Heather and Bob were both finishing their senior year of college. By July 4th, Heather was a huge, sweaty monster. She impatiently waited for her due date, 7.8.99. Heather tried the red raspberry leaf tea, cohoshes, primrose…if there was an herb or natural remedy to evict this kid- she wanted it. Finally, Heather went to her 40 wk check up. She had been walking around for a month at 3.5 cm dilated, and 100% effaced. For the love of God, this baby had to come out sometime.
Her obgyn decided to strip her membranes, and assured her the baby would come that week.
Heather sat up, went pee, and was in labor an hour later.
For the next 22 hours of her life, it felt like pure hell. Labor started around 5pm. Bob took Heather to L&D around 11pm. Her obgyn was unable to be reached, but there was a really horrible, nasty midwife from the office on call. She informed Heather that since she was not progressing past 3.5, she would be going home. Heather told her to f* herself. And told her again, and again, and all of the way out of the hospital at 3am. Heather and Bob went home, and Heather cried in pain until 8am when her obgyn office opened.
Heather was readmitted to the hospital around noon still at 3.5, and finally got what she had been waiting for. An epidural.
Not 30 minutes went by, and the dr assured Bob it would be a while, and to get something to eat. Bob decided to grab a burger from the cafeteria and left the room. No sooner was he out of sight, and Heather was sure her epidural wasn’t working. She asked the nurse to take a look and see why there was so much pain and pressure.
The baby was coming out. “Please don’t push”. They had to page Bob in the hospital back to the room, and needed to find the doctor. Bob made it back just in time, with a mouthful of burger and Miss Maeve came screaming into the world right on her due date.
7.8.99* 4:37pm *7lbs, 14oz* 20.5 inches
I took 
