Oli's Birth Story {part 2}

The false alarm trip to the hospital was so disheartening. On the elevator ride home a doctor saw us and pleasantly asked "heading home?" and I bitterly confirmed that we were. "You'll be back soon enough" he said kindly, though it felt like an eternity before we were.

Over a full week later, there were occasional contractions but nothing like the 12 hours of by-the-book contractions that sent me to the hospital earlier. I began to consider that Oli may come on time or late - something I'd never entertained before. That would not be cool. To even stand I felt enormous pressure in baby's neighbourhood and with every step shooting pain came from my lower back to the rest of my torso. My body was so weakened by these back to back pregnancies and I was so useless in the final weeks. I couldn't lift Lily or do much of anything without causing pain - unfortunate for me because I was looking to bring on labour!

I woke up at 3am on a Saturday morning feeling wet. Not drenched, but wet. I wasn't continuously dripping fluid nor did I have contractions - two things that follow your water breaking, 99% of the time. Physically I was such a wreck that it wasn't a stretch to think that I'd peed the bed, though obviously embarrassing! I woke up Brad, told him I *thought* I'd wet the bed (and apologized haha!), but also added that my water could have broken. He shot out of bed at the second notion, not the first. We googled it from my ipod and sure enough we read that unless I had continual liquid or contractions, it was unlikely that my water had broken. Back to bed I went, after grabbing a towel to cover the "pee". Sidenote: I know this whole story is ultra glamourous, try not to envy me or my husband ;)

The next morning we woke up to zero signs of labour, so it was business as usual. I was feeling great, but couldn't shake the night before. I washed our sheets and examined them real good. The wet stain spot was a decent size. Not yellow. Not smelling of urine. But very wet. Hmmmm.

Then I remembered my dear friend Jess who said when her water broke nothing happened and she had to be induced after 12 hours because of the dangers of a baby being inside of you with no water. I did the math. If my water broke, it was 13 hours ago. I better text her and get some details. Sure enough, she gave me the confidence I needed to head to the hospital to get checked out. But the real motivation was that my doctor whom I adore was working that day. Lily wasn't delivered by the OBGYN who had followed me through my pregnancy with her and I would love if Oli were.

So there I was - not feeling in labour at all. No real signs aside from a mysterious 3am wake up call. But knowing my husband was off that day and home with our daughter, and that my doctor would be waiting for me, I headed back to the hospital to see what was up...