a third birth story {part two}

In order to "get" this post you probably need to read part one of my birth story first. I'm sharing the story over a few posts. This is how it continued to unfold...

I gasped really loudly. It was the shock. Genuine really shock. Rich looked at me and asked "What?" like something on the television show had surprised me and he'd missed something. 

And I mumbled; "I think my water just broke" as I headed for the bathroom at high speed. Standing up seemingly confirmed my suspicions because I could feel that telltale warm trickle, but I knew for sure when I got the bathroom and the water just continued to trickle. 

I come out of the bathroom to find Rich right outside with a kid-at-Christmas look on his face; "Okay, so is it time? Do you want to ring your mum and I'll put the bags in the car?" The thing was, despite my waters going I knew I wasn't contracting yet. I was in no pain whatsoever, and my waters were clear, so there really seemed no point rushing off anywhere when clearly nothing was going to happen anytime soon.

I was the yin to Rich's yang at the particular moment; while he seemed all giddy and excited and raring to go, I was calm and played it down. I just got a pad, and a towel and got back on the sofa to carry on watching the television. I was excited obviously, on the inside. I was glad that we were finally on the home stretch and that something would happen soon. But I knew from my first birth that things could take a loooooong time. Even with my second, quicker birth, it had still been a good few hours, and I didn't want to hurry to hospital ahead of time. Not least because I wasn't having any contractions yet.

I did decide to ring my mum and give her a bit of heads up. I knew she'd be heading to bed soon, and I wanted her to at least be ready to make the journey over to ours at short notice in the night. Very much like Rich was, she was excited and wanted to know if I wanted her straight over. But honestly I just didn't want anyone to fuss. At the moment I didn't want Rich or her excitement to get me all excited when I knew it would still be a while before we met our baby girl. I just seemed to keep saying over and over "My waters have broken by nothing is happening yet" as much for myself as for anyone else.

I think we'd been settled back to watch television for about twenty minutes when it crossed my mind that technically I was a high risk pregnancy (due to low platelets) and maybe I should ring the midwife and see if I was okay to wait it out at home until things got started. Low platelets meant that I couldn't give birth at the local maternity unit but would be travelling to the bigger hospital in the city 15-20minutes drive away. This was the hospital that I'd had both the older two children at anyway, and it suited me that I would have to go there, as I wanted an epidural for pain relief anyway, and I could only have that there. I figured it couldn't hurt to ring them and let them know what was going on so that they would at least know to expect me. Plus I knew that once your waters had gone they had to book you for an induction if things hadn't started by themselves within 24 hours.

So I rang the hospital, continuing to play it down, saying that while my waters had gone I wasn't contracting yet and that I really was keen to stay at home for now. Unfortunately as soon as I mentioned about being high risk, the midwife really wasn't happy for me to just wait at home without at least being checked over first. By this point it was just after 10pm, and the last thing I wanted to do was drive all the way to the hospital, with nothing actually going on, only to be sent home again once I'd been given the all clear. So I asked if it was possible for me to monitored at our local midwife led unit instead, as it's only just down the road. We also have to pass it on our way to the main hospital, and I just much preferred the idea of popping there for some quick monitoring, if we could avoid the longer drive. The midwife agreed but said that if I started feeling any contractions whatsoever then I needed to go to the main hospital instead.  

One quick call to the local unit and another quick call to my mum and we had a plan. Mum would come over to watch the kids while Rich and I went for monitoring, and she'd just sleep at ours, that way if we needed to dash off in the middle of the night then she was already in situ. Rich was still acting like a giddy kid when we left just before 11pm, confidently telling my mum that this was it and we probably wouldn't be back home again, while I confidently told her we'd see her in an hour after I'd had some monitoring. I just knew that it wasn't the time yet. 

If I've given you a taste for a birth story and then left you hanging, you could always check out my first birth story and my second birth story while you wait. Or you can watch our birth story video.