This past weekend, Ava and I flew to NYC for a nice 4 night/5 day trip.  Our originally intention was to watch my nephew, Jonny, show at the Westminster Dog show.  We decided to turn it into a longer trip, since this will be our last vacation till after the baby is born.  So, we hopped on a plane at 6 am Saturday morning and by 8:30 we were exiting a taxi around Central Park.  We sent our luggage with my brother Doug, so we only had our mini-Timbuk2 bags, some water and our handy-dandy NYC travel books. 

The first stop on our trip, breakfast.  Every place in NYC sells egg sandwiches.  1 egg with cheese on a roll: $2.50.  Once we ate, we were off to the Natural History Museum and our first taste of worry.  Ava started to feel some low back pain and according to her, low back pain is usually the first thing laboring mothers feel.  It starts in the back.  Neither one of us wanted to deliver in NYC, plus we’re not even done with our Bradley class!!!  So, we walked/stood/read/took pictures at the NHM for a couple of hours, stopping at benches every 10 or 15 minutes. 

We finally made it through each and EVERY exhibit in the museum and headed to Central Park and more benches.  If Ava could have done her pelvic rocks in the park, we would have because there was nothing that was helping withher pain.  It was really starting to worry both of us.  Plus, it’s only 1pm and we can’t check into the hotel till 3pm.

On the fourthor fifth bench, I decide to take a couple of things out of her bag.  The water and the 3 pound travel book and we head out to the hotel.  We haven’t yet figured out the subway thing and for some reason we never grabbed a taxi.  But after several stops to Starbucks, more benches and some lunch, we ended up at our hotel.  The Natural History Museum is around 86th street and our hotel is on 33rd street.  That’s a lot of blocks.

Fortuanately, the line for check in was rather short (30 minutes).  We were upgraded to the 12th floor room, with a view of the Empire State Building, if we promised to have no dogs in the room.  That’s fine with me.  Once in the room, we relaxed, put our feet up, drank some water and napped.

After a couple of hours, my brother/sister-in-law and nephew showed up.  We made it thru the evening and heading for breakfast for the start of more adventures.  We both figured the back pain was due to the 3 pound travel book in Ava’s bag, the change in pressure in flight and all the walking.  She didn’t have any back pain for the remainder of the trip.  Fortuanately, even though I felt very helpless, we both managed to get thru this little test of patience.  We did have a great time and bought a polka dot diaper bag.  The baby’s first vacation was a lot of fun.