Tuesday, June 14th- 6:15 am: I slowly wake up, and realize I have to pee. Again. Nothing new. I'm working from home this week which is good because my legs are so swollen with fluid they're hard to lift. Getting in and out of bed is a major effort. As I attempt to roll my gargantuan stomach over to get out of bed, I feel a small rush of fluid between my legs. "Oh great," I think. "I've finally reached that point in my pregnancy that they talk about where I'm incontinent. Guess I should have done my kegels like they said to, because I totally just peed the bed." I finally am able to stand up and the fluid just doesn't stop. "Whoa, that's weird. I'm REALLY incontinent." (Laugh all you want; it really did feel like I was peeing!) I get to the bathroom and go pee, and realize I can't stop peeing no matter how hard I try. Hmm. Maybe I'm NOT peeing. (Betcha didn't know that so much of my birth story was going to be about pee, didja?) Maybe my water is breaking? But how could that be?
Walk back in to the bedroom, still leaking fluid everywhere. Decide that this is definitely SOMETHING, so I tap Ian on the leg. He wakes up startled, because I've turned the lights on, and am standing up by the bed; not a normal occurrence for 6:15 in the morning. "I think my water broke." Instantly he is WAY more awake.
I was pretty darn excited, because honestly; I never thought we'd get to have the "honey; it's time!" moment. My doctor seemed pretty much certain that I'd have to be induced to deliver. But here we were; at 35 weeks, 5 days and it seemed as though it most definitely was "time". I still had my doubts though, because hey; I'd never had a baby before- what did I know? I called my doctor and spoke to her answering service. She called me right back, and once I explained what was going on, she said "Yes, it sounds like your water broke. Head to the hospital, and I'll meet you there later this afternoon." Holy crap! This IS it! I mean, probably!
Next up to call was my mom. She was flying in for the birth, so I needed to give her the head's up. I called her and I think she knew what was up, as it was 3:30 am her time. I told her that I was PRETTY sure my water had broken, but that she should wait to buy her ticket until it was confirmed. She said she'd start looking for flights and stand by.
So, had I packed my hospital bag? Nope. It was on my "to do" list for that week. I figured I had time; plenty of time. I had a whole list of things I was going to get done that week that obviously weren't going to happen now! Whoops!
I kind of was just standing in my room, (over a towel- as I was still just making a mess everywhere I walked) in a daze, not really knowing where to start. Luckily, Ian pulled up our "hospital bag" list and just started packing. I decided a shower was probably in order, so I went to do that. As I stood under the hot water I started crying a little. Not out of sadness, but excitement and a little bit of overwhelmedness. "I'm going to have babies soon! Holy crap! This is actually happening! I'm going to be a mother!" To me, honestly, that was the very first moment it all felt very REAL. Yes, I realize that sounds silly, since for almost 9 months I'd felt babies kicking, seen them on ultrasounds, heard their heartbeats, etc.; but this was the first moment I really, really realized that I was going to give BIRTH, and it was going to be soon. I was going to finally meet my girls.
Once my shower was over I came back into the bedroom and Ian was making great progress on the hospital bag. I all of the sudden felt very anxious that we had to get to the hospital SOON. I wanted to make sure the babies were ok. Ian headed off to shower and we decided that the bag was packed enough; it was time to head out. We called the car service around 7:45am and were off to the hospital!
It only took about 15 minutes to get to the hospital; very little traffic which was good. Our driver was nice and didn't chat with us at all, which was good. We asked him his name when we got out of the car, so we could have it for posterity. I think he thought we were going to report him for something, because he seemed worried after we asked him. I kept a list in my iPhone of names of people we encountered; but unfortunately, I've since ruined my iPhone by dropping it into the toilet on one of the sleep deprived nights in the hospital- so that list is gone. :(
Once we arrived and checked in, it was about another 45 minutes to an hour before I was in a room and getting checked. They had a resident come in to do a check to see if my water had officially broken- and lo and behold it had! Officially in labor. :) Wahoo! No contractions at this point, but it was good to know that I was officially on my way!
First point of business was to set me up with an IV to get some fluids going. I had read that you could refuse fluids so that you didn't have to be hooked up to an IV right away, but in our childbirth class we learned that if you were going to have an epidural (which my doctor said was pretty necessary for me since we'd probably have to manually turn baby B or I may need an emergency csection) that you should get fluids because you needed to have a certain amount of fluids before you did the epidural. Anyway, the nurse tried once to find a vein and couldn't (this is always an issue for me; I have really hard to find veins) and decided to call the anesthesiologist on call to find one. He arrived a few minutes later and was really funny and kind; which made things less stressful. It took 4 tries in total; lots of poking, bleeding and bruising, but he finally got one on the back of my left hand. Which by the way, is a very uncomfortable place to have an IV.
Once the fluids were in, we just kind of hung out until my doctor arrived around 1pm to check me. I was 1 cm dialated and still not having contractions, so she administered a pill called Misoprostol to start contractions. It kicked in about 30 minutes later at 1:45pm when I had my first contraction. About 30 minutes after that, they were about one minute long and 10 minutes apart. So, a ways to go, but progress nonetheless.
Ok- stay tuned for part two! (And possibly 3 and 4.... depends on how long winded I end up being.) :)
~M
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