Getting to relax a little with a can of beer... Dale's Pale Ale. It's been a very long stressful day. Got a phone call this morning at 6:30 am from Kate telling me her water broke, she was starting labor and heading to the hospital. We would later in the day find out that they dropped off Henry and Clara at their neighbors house down the street.
Becky popped out of bed when I gave her the news about Katie and we started making plans. I checked with the airline to see if it was possible to switch our plane tickets to an earlier flight. We had tickets to fly to Philadelphia on January 12th in plenty of time for her scheduled c section birth of the baby on January 14th but none of that mattered now. Of course there were no seats on the morning of December 30th or anytime within a few days so we immediately began packing our bags for a drive to Philly. Fortunately I just filled the gas tank the day before and we were ready to go.
We had just been to Sean and Ashley's house for almost a week and had only been back home for a couple of days. Our suitcases were handy and we both started packing. I contacted our neighbors with a text message to Jody and a note in Pat's door telling them of our changing situation. I also went online and did a stop mail form at the post office site. Then I loaded the car while Becky packed some sandwiches and snacks. We set a personal record for getting ready for a trip.
We were on the road and actually driving down the NY State Thruway before 9 am. Becky was checking the weather on her phone but it really didn't matter. We were committed to driving down to Philadelphia today and being there for Katie and Todd to help them with the children. We had a couple of texts as they tried to keep us up to date on what was happening. We knew that the hospital staff would be performing the c section sometime that morning.
Fortunately the weather was not bad. There was no snow or rain. Just lots of clouds as we crossed New York State. We did run into some fog around Syracuse. We were also lucky that there was no road construction to slow us down and no traffic accidents or problems either. The traffic was relatively light going across the state. As we dropped down route 81 we did run into more fog off and on all down through to the Poconos and the PA Turnpike. All along the thruway we saw snow plows and salt trucks at the ready.
We stopped to eat our lunch just inside Pennsylvania at a rest stop and got a text from Todd announcing the baby was born a little after 10 am and named Violet Orla. I took the opportunity to post a message on a FB chat with family members that had been going on all day about a family covid spreader event at Christmas. I told everyone that we were unexpectedly driving down to Philly for the early birth of Katie's baby. Within moments I got a phone call from Betsy so we had a chat while we were eating our lunch.
Back on the road we ran into a lot of fog again but the temperature was in the 40's which meant no snow which had been my biggest worry about driving down to Philly in late December. The fog went away as we got past the Poconos and started driving south into the Delaware Valley. We had made very good time all day long. I thought about getting off the turnpike a little early but I missed the exit I wanted to take Sumneytown Pike down to the city. I drove on down the turnpike and then missed the exit again for Plymouth Meeting and Germantown Pike. I must have been tired and the signage has changed over the years. I kept on going right down to Schuylkill Expressway which I originally wanted to avoid because of traffic in the late afternoon. There was a lot of traffic but I just kept going down along the river until I saw the exit for Lincoln Drive. The last thing I really wanted to do was to drive on that road at the end of a very long stressful day of driving but it was very familiar and in a way taking this route was a lot quicker getting into the city and Katie's neighborhood than what I had originally planned.
I actually got into the Mt Airy neighborhood a little after 4 pm which was amazing. I can't believe how good of time we made on this trip. It was about 4:15 when we parked the car in Katie's driveway. Todd had texted me the address of their neighbors and we walked down the street to pick them up and get the house key. They had been playing in the backyard because of a covid scare in that household that happened after the kids were dropped off there but that is another story.
The kids were very happy to see us and we got them home to make them dinner. We had a great time with them and they were both very good. When it was getting close to bedtime they both told us individually that they were tired and wanted to go to bed. The bedtime process went very smoothly and they both went to sleep immediately.
Becky and I sat on the couch and relaxed. It was such a long stressful day. Thankfully there was a can of Dale's Pale Ale in the frig for me to enjoy before going to bed.
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