As far as the title goes:
No. This is NOT what my Mormon friends might be thinking. I am NOT pregnant.*
This is a good thing but, dang, those newborns are just so precious!
We've had a few Operation XX lately. It all started with my 6-year-old coming home from school a few weeks ago telling me about Operation Smoochie Smoochie. Yep, it's what you think it is. He is trying to kiss a girl! Or they are trying to kiss each other. Or a bunch of boys are trying to kiss her. Who knows?!? I am trying not to bug him about it every five minutes although I am dying to find out all of the details! I happen to think that Cooper is the coolest girl ever but he assures me that there are very strict rules against kissing at his school. What a bummer! Karl and I just shake our heads because - where does this kid even come from? We can each count the lovers we've kissed in our ENTIRE LIVES one ONE hand. And Noah couldn't care any less about girls. But someone in this family needs to live the high life, right?
So we've had Operation Gobble Gobble, Operation Ho Ho Ho, and now we have OPERATION BABY BABY!
And if you want to find out why Karen and I dubbed our little swim-bike-run trip to Phoenix Operation Baby Baby, then you need to keep on reading. It's a good story, I promise! I mean - who doesn't want to know how we (possibly probably) caused our friend to go into labor a week early?
*Much to the dismay of my children. They want a baby brother so badly! The already have a name picked out: Leo Nico. Sorry, guys!
The Westy! My fave vehicle.
Not only were we ready to escape the cold, wet, and fog in Flagstaff but it was time for another girls' trip in the Westy! Remember the last one? Well, this one wasn't supposed to be nearly as exciting and I EVEN remembered to bring the Di2 battery so I would be able to shift gears on my bike! Success!
Happiness!
Our husbands let us go because we sold tried to sell them the following story:
Our friend, Erica, from Flagstaff is moving down to Scottsdale for a month waiting to give birth to her first child there and she is going to be so lonely and worried that these two experienced mothers MUST go visit her and take care of her. We will leave early Wednesday morning and promise to be back Thursday afternoon by the time the kids get off the bus. It's such a selfless trip that you can't say NO, right? ... Oh, and we'll bring bikes, running shoes, and swim suits JUST in case.
Not that they really believed our story. But they were nice enough to go along with it.
Meaning:
We will sneak away for as much biking, running, and swimming as we can possibly squeeze into 30 hours and, when it gets dark and chilly, we will go have dinner with Erica and hang out!
Except that we overestimated ourselves and underestimated Erica. Or something like that. When we called Erica to tell her that we are going to stop in Anthem to ride, run, and swim, she said she was going to drive up and meet us for the swimming part. "Just call me when you are an hour from finishing the bike and I will come up." Ok. Sounds like a plan. It's not like she was going to have this baby while swimming a few laps with us, right? Plus, she wasn't due for another 10 days.
Friends for life!
So we took off with plans of riding 90 miles to Bartlett Lake and back. Nothing like a fun little off-season ride! However, I should've known that the two of us can't be trusted when, about 15 minutes into the ride, we had to carry our bikes through a fence and across a desert dirt strip in order to stay on our planned route. We decided we may as well take a pee right then and there, so we did. But SOMEONE doesn't have as much peeing 'in public' experience as the other, so she ended up with a whole bunch of wet dirt in her cycling shoes and despite her best efforts with a stick, she was unable to unclip at the next few traffic lights! We were off to a good start!!! But - wait - she also forgot to bring any and all bike repair stuff! Good thing she at least had ONE bottle cage on her bike... Oh well, nothing was going to dampen our spirits today, so off we went!
My happy place.
We were loving life on this ride and couldn't get over how LUCKY and FORTUNATE we are!!! It hit me once again that this makes me ridiculously happy. I know I wouldn't enjoy these little get-aways nearly as much if I didn't have my little family to come home to, so really it's the best of both worlds!
Once we had dropped down all the way to the gorgeous lake, we rode around a bit and planned out Bartlett Bikini Camp 2015! The lake, the Westy, trails, hills, bikes, and bikinis. What else could we possibly need!?! The climbing back out of there is no joke, especially when one hasn't done much training since Ironman Arizona a month ago, so it's a good thing that fitness doesn't just vanish over night. So up up up we went! This is some of my favorite riding in Arizona!
Once we hit Cave Creek on our return and it was a bit over an hour back to the car/pool, we took a much-needed pit stop and called Erica so she could start getting ready for our little swim party!
We have fun for a few minutes.
Then I get a flat tire.
We fix it.
Ten minutes later I get another flat tire.
(Stupid Carefree Highway!)
We try to fix it but failed.
We run out of fix-it stuff.
(Remember how only ONE of us brought any?)
We are pissed.
We come up with the only possible solution:
Erica to the rescue.
Have her drive out to get me.
I start walking toward Erica.
My phone is dead.
Karen bikes back solo.
We laugh.
The only problem:
Erica's little Sedan is FULL of baby stuff.
There is room for me.
But not for my bike.
We briefly consider me just holding my bike out the window.
Surely this can't be too hard and has been done before.
Well, it's harder than it sounds.
After a lot of rearranging, we somehow squeeze us all in there.
We laugh some more.
Here we are pretending to help out Erica.
In reality, Erica is saving US!
Off to the pool we go!
How hard can it be to swim a few laps at a gorgeous and warm outdoor pool at sunset? Well, not very UNLESS you have to sneak into said pool by pretending to be someone you aren't. Which is no big deal for experienced into-pool-sneakers and, while SOME of us didn't feel very comfortable with the idea and broke out into sweat, ALL of us really wanted to swim. So I told them to just let me do all of the talking. Why can't all pools be open to the public for a reasonable fee? Most of them (including this one) are empty most of the time!
As you can see, it was totally worth it!
Erica - cutest 9-month pregnant lady ever!
When Erica and I finally walk out into the parking lot to join Karen by the cars, she is coming toward us in tears. She can't find her glasses! Without which she is basically blind. Okay, no big deal, we will find the glasses. Somewhere. How hard can it be? How many places could they possibly be? But why is this such a big deal? Because - also - the Westy isn't starting! Not one tiny bit. Completely dead. Damnit. That van has more issues than all 3 of us girls together!
The solution:
AAA to the rescue!
We wait.
The problem:
We can't find the glasses ANYWHERE.
We are in a gated community to which we don't belong.
We know NOTHING about cars.
We are STARVING.
It's getting late.
We have a VERY pregnant friend with us.
All of this excitement is a bit much.
And then Erica's water breaks!
Right there. In the van. In the parking lot. In the middle of our talking and laughing and problem-solving and being-stuck-in-a-parking-lot. HOLY CRAP!!! Now what?!?
The solution:
Call the AAA and tell him to hurry up!
Get Erica to the hospital.
The problems:
A worried about-to-be-first-time-mom.
A soon-to-be-father who is at least 3 hours away.
Two cars and only one driver.
(Karen = blind, Erica = extremely flustered)
Hospital is 45 minutes away.
Of course - secretly - Karen and I are THRILLED to be a part of this. Giddy even. Erica is going to have this baby WHILE we are here! We'll get to hold it, cuddle it, kiss it, and love on it! But we also fear that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have gone into labor already if we hadn't caused all of this excitement in just one short afternoon. But it is too late now...
As soon as AAA guy fixes the Westy by simply jump starting it (dead battery... don't ask...), we take off. I drive Erica's car and blind Karen is following us in the van. We tell her to just follow us very closely. All she really needs to see is the back of our car and she'll be fine. It's a long 45 minutes in the car but the good news is that I already experienced giving birth twice with my two boys so, clearly, I am an expert at all things birth-related and super qualified to give all kinds of advice to Erica! Ha.
We get Erica checked in and... That's about it. We find a few things to help with here and there until Matt, her husband, arrives but then we are pretty much out of a job. Let the waiting game begin!
We eat a super late dinner.
No baby.
We sleep for a few hours in a friend's driveway.
No baby.
We make a McDonald's run for Matt at 3am.
No baby.
No matter ho many issues, I love the Westy. So convenient and comfy!
We sleep a few more hours in the hospital parking lot without getting busted.
No baby.
Random picture but you gotta love the Scottsdale pools!
We enjoy another beautiful swim.
We go out to breakfast.
We go to the bike store to buy tubes and CO2s.
We go for a run along the canal.
Still NO BABY.
We fix my bike in the hospital parking lot.
We go for a bike ride.
We run out of time.
No baby.
We promised the husband's we would be back around the kids' bedtime on Thursday night and we want to keep that promise. So we leave the hospital with heavy hearts and sad faces. We REALLY wanted to meet that precious baby girl!
We drive an hour north.
We stop for dinner.
We get a text:
THE BABY IS HERE!
Isn't she just perfect?
We were ecstatic and a little bit heartbroken too but really just so very grateful that baby and mommy are healthy and happy! Every birth is a miracle to me and this one wasn't easy! It was a few long days during which we may have told this awesome story a few dozen times to everyone that was willing to listen and then we finally got to meet and hold cute little Liliana who is just perfect. So glad it's off-season and I can just walk over to Erica's anytime I feel like seeing her and Lili!
(Nope. Karen and I are definitely not baby hungry. Not at all. And we are certainly not already dreaming of being grandmas. Never.)
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