Panic!

It all started on Saturday night when my husband and I couldn't sleep. It had been a great day. One of those one in a million lazy days. He had been studying all day for his test and had finally baby proofed the closet, and I hadn't really done anything at all. The house was clean, my homework was done, and all was right with the world.

Except we couldn't sleep, but we were in a great mood, we talked all night about silly and random things. We tried to remember eighties theme songs and television commercials. We sang the theme to Ducktales, Growing Pains, Full House, and Sanford and Son, and we laughed and laughed.

Finally we drifted off around 2:30 am.

I woke up around 4:00 in complete agony. I had a severe pain on the lower left side of my back that radiated up the entire left side of my back. I felt like I was being stabbed and set on fire at the same time. It was terrifying and excruciating. Weeping in agony I limped to the rest room in hopes that maybe going to the bathroom would fix things.

It didn't make it worse but it didn't help either. I crawled back to the bed holding back tears. I knew I should call kaiser. Instead I laid down hoping that would help. When it didn't I started to cry and woke up my husband to let him know something was terribly wrong and we needed to go now.

We got ready. My baby is the only reason I had the strength to get dressed and walk to the car. I kept trying to feel the baby move but either she was being still or the pain was to intense to feel through.

We chose the closest hospital instead of our delivery center, I just couldn't make it very far. We arrived at the hospital and spent 45 minutes filling out paperwork before they even looked at me medically. The receptionist was super sweet, but all I wanted was my baby hooked up to a moniter. Sensing my worry she told me not to worry it was most likely labor or a bladder infection.

I tried explaining that it wasn't a contraction an peeing didn't hurt so it was unlikely anything to do with my bladder or kidneys, will you please please check on the baby! At 5:00 am I finally heard that blessed little heart beat. They checked my cervix, closed up tight, noted I was experiencing contractions but wasn't feeling them because of the back pain, and ruled out a ui infection, a kidney stone, and labor.

I was feeling better by now. The pain was coming and going intermittently as opposed to being constant like it had been, and the pain level was down from a 10 to a 3. They decided the baby must have laid on a nerve or the kidney may have been jabbed by my uterus expanding and flattened some sort of tube making fluid back up.

They advised me to tell my doctor soon (I had an appointment booked for Monday morning) and my husband and I got discharge at 10:30.

We ate breakfast, went home and curled up in bed talking about how relieved we were everything was ok. I decided I was going to have the baby Monday. I lived too far from the hospital to play this game. Last night had terrified me, and I wasn't letting that happen again. We were lucky the baby was, because waiting forty-five minutes in the ER was just insane. What if my placent ok a had detached or something or the baby was in danger and needed to be taken out right then! No, I was getting induced, so help them if they said no. I drifted off at 11:00 still thinking of ways to talk my doctor into an induction.

I slept fitfully, I was feeling mild contractions now, you know those Braxton hix things? And it was putting a lot of pressure on my pelvis. That coupled with the backpain promised a long day of poor sleep. 11:30 I was semi conscious debating on whether or not I really needed to get up and pee when I felt a little pee escape.

The matter decided I hopped up ready to go to the bathroom and noticed water trickling down my leg. It wasn't acting like pee! It's hard to describe, it wasn't exactly coming from the right place, and I couldn't control the flow.

"Oh no way!" I exclaimed, startled, excited, and annoyed at once.

My poor husband jerked awake and asked me what was wrong.

"My water just broke!"