Cookies and contractions

With a new baby on the way and my delivery date approaching on December 11, 2018, I decided to take one week off early from work before baby was born to go on maternity leave. My last day was Friday, November 30. It would be a week to myself to cook, bake, rest and reflect – and most importantly – be solely focused on baby’s arrival.

The weekend before my maternity leave began, Amar and I took time to plan out my meals for the week. He went on a major grocery store trip to Meijer to make sure our kitchen was stocked up. Remember, nine months pregnant lady here, my appetite was huge. In fact, we planned out my lunches, dinners and snacks for the whole week.

On Tuesday morning, my second official day of my week to myself, I put broccoli cheese soup on the slow cooker. While it bubbled for four hours on low, I began to watch a recent well-loved program of mine, The Great British Bake-off Beginnings on Netflix. When my soup was ready to enjoy, I filled a bowl and warmed myself. It was so good. I made sure to top my bowl with a little extra cheddar cheese for good measure.

After lunch was complete, I did the dishes. Now, I was in need of dessert. Apparently I was in the mood for a cookie. I looked through my saved recipes and found one for Sea Salt Chocolate Chip cookies I had made a few years before during the holidays. That cookie recipe was based off of this one from AllRecipes.com. I chose Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe as the one to bake today.

Right around the time I had identified the recipe I was going to use, and pulled it up on my laptop, something interesting began to happen. I began to have contractions.

I didn’t know what to make of it. This was a full week before baby was due. I couldn’t possibly be going into labor this early, could I? Now I had experienced Braxton Hicks contractions before. But the Braxton Hicks contractions were no match for what I experienced that Tuesday afternoon.

Back to the cookies. With all my dry ingredients assembled, and contractions continuing, I wondered if I should stop this attempt at baking. But I refused. Instead, I turned on the oven and began to combine my ingredients.

As I cooked, my television show continued to play. I paused it when I needed to if I was in the middle of a baking step and couldn’t focus fully on the program.

As I creamed together butter, white sugar and brown sugar, and then beat in my eggs with my KitchenAid, I was so focused on the sweet satisfaction of biting into a piping hot cookie just out of the oven. That focus on the warm and gooey reward helped me power through what I was feeling inside.

Finally, somehow, I managed to get the first two trays into the oven. I set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes. The rest of my dough sat in the bowl, waiting for its chance to rise to glory on the tray when the first batch was out.

When all the baking was said and done, I had four hot, fresh chocolate chip cookies that afternoon. It turns out, it would be the last thing I ate for quite a while.

At 3:21 p.m., I emailed my husband the following: “I have been having contractions all day. I am wondering if I should let Cassie know soon.”

Cassie is our doula, a labor coach we enlisted to help us prepare mentally, physically and emotionally before and during labor and delivery.

As I ate cookies and pondered what was ahead, I opened up another tab on my computer. I googled “Signs of early labor” and landed upon a resource I used much during my pregnancy: What to Expect. I started going through the post, titled “10 Signs of Labor.” I still wasn’t exactly sure what was going on.

After I finished baking, I transferred the cookies to a dish on the table and covered them. The next time I enjoyed one would turn out to be in the hospital when my Mom and sister brought me some to enjoy.

By the time Amar got home from work, I was already well underway. I wanted him to eat, so he warmed up a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup. As he sat and ate, I realized I may very well be in labor.

Gradually, as evening turned into night, we moved from the family room to our bedroom. Cassie told me to try to keep doing what I was doing and going about my business as normal, which I attempted to do. She also encouraged me to get rest and go to bed early. Turns out, it’s a lot harder to do so once you are riding the incredible wave of each contraction.

Eventually, Amar downloaded an app to time my contractions. As much as I wanted him to be able to rest, I needed him by my side to remind me to keep breathing. We kept waiting for my contractions to follow the golden 5-1-1 rule. That means each contraction is 5 minutes apart, lasting for one minute long each, for one hour.

We didn’t quite get my labor to fit into the 5-1-1 rule, but we got close. They were down to 7 or so minutes apart. At this point, I was anxious to get to the hospital. I needed confirmation that labor was beginning and that the day we could meet our baby was finally nearing.

At 2:47 a.m., we made the call to the hospital. The on-call doctor gave us the green light: it was time to come on in. Amar was showered and freshened up for the drive. He loaded our already packed hospital bag into my car. In the December snow, we drove downtown to Spectrum Butterworth Hospital.

During those first few contractions at home, while I was baking, I kept my eyes on the prize. At that moment, it was the sweet satisfaction of a homemade cookie. Yes, I even resisted the sinful temptation of eating any raw cookie dough, although we all know how delightful a little bit of that can be.

As my labor progressed, I remained focused, thanks to Amar and Cassie, on being able to meet our son at the end of it. Continued reminders of what I had to look forward to helped me stay focused during the ups and downs and starts and stops of labor.

On December 6, at 4:18 a.m., Aadil Amar Patel was born. I’ll have more about my hospital experience and the wonderful care we received in a future post.

On December 11, a week after my baking endeavor, and now at home with baby, I ate the last chocolate chip cookie left, while Aadil rested nearby. December 11, 2018 was his due date. I’ll have to agree with AllRecipes.com on this one. This really is the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe ever.