Bulletproof by Maci Bookout Read Free Book Online Page A

weird stubbornness about it. I didn’t ask for much advice, or read any books, or do any research or go to any classes. It would be hard to explain why. I felt like if I read ahead or went to classes or tried to feel prepared, I’d just be setting myself up for failure. I didn’t want to lean on expectations based on other people’s experiences. Basically, I didn’t want to overthink it and set myself up to panic at the first surprise that popped up. Instead I wanted to trust my instincts and body rather than let my mind micromanage it.
    Later I would think, “Holy crap. I can’t believe I went through this at sixteen and decided to go in unprepared.” What was I thinking? It’s insane how much you change as you grow, and when I was older, I looked back and just shook my head in astonishment. I even wondered why no one ever took us by the shoulders and shook us. Why didn’t they say, “You don’t know it all and you don’t have it together?” But at the same time, I was glad for my mindset. I knew that overanalyzing everything would just open me up to anxiety. It was better to go in with my confidence intact. That way I’d be stronger if anything came up and destroyed my expectations of how the experience would be. And I think the people who loved me sensed that. My parents knew what was best for me, just like I did. They knew I’d be able to handle it when the time came, and chose not to overwhelm me with doubts and warnings. The idea was to face it with confidence and an optimistic mindset and just go.
    It was Saturday, October 25, and I had spent the night dressed up as a pregnant pirate for a Halloween party we’d thrown at the apartment. Ryan and I finally settled down to sleep, and not a second too soon. I was beat. I’d been running around all day doing all the usual hostess things, picking up decorations and getting the place ready for guests. That was probably what did it.
    At about four in the morning, I snapped awake. It was pain that had woken me up, but by the time I came to, it was already just an echo in my mind. It wasn’t even hard to fall back asleep. But not long after, I woke up again in the exact same way. Once again I could feel the pain fading just as fast as it woke me up. It was late, and I was sleepy, so I was completely without a clue. But the next time it happened, I hadn’t quite drifted back to sleep yet. That was when I realized I was having a contraction.
    I got out of bed without waking Ryan and went down the hall with my phone. Obviously, I called my mom.
    “I think I’m having contractions,” I told her. “What should I do?” She asked me what it felt like, and I described them and told her I thought they were about ten or fifteen minutes apart.
    “Go and walk around,” she said. “Take a shower and see if the same amount of time is happening between them, then call me back.”
    I went and did what she said, and the next ones were still between ten and fifteen minutes apart.
    “Okay,” she said. “When they get to be five minutes apart, call the doctor and then call me, and I’ll come and take you there.”
    For the next forty minutes or so, I wandered around the house and felt the time between the contractions get shorter and shorter. Finally, when they were five minutes apart, I sighed and went back into the bedroom to wake up Ryan.
    “I’m ready to go to the hospital,” I said when he cracked his eyes open.
    “Shit.” Bless his heart, but he was hung over. Like, the dying kind. I couldn’t help feeling bad waking him up that way at five in the morning, but it couldn’t exactly be helped. “What?”
    “I have to go to the hospital,” I said again.
    “Right now?” He blinked up at me like he was wondering if it was a nightmare. “Seriously?”
    Somehow, we made it to the doctor, checked me in, and headed upstairs. When they came in to check my cervix, I thought things were well underway. But we weren’t even close to getting started. Before being