Labor Day – Part 1

As my due date(s) approached I became increasingly uncomfortable being pregnant – feeling large, large, large. Although I’d stopped working the week before being at home felt nothing like a vacation. I spent my days slowly completing tasks around the house and watching my ankles swell.

Two significant things happened during that week: my doctor told me he thought I still had “a ways to go” because I still looked too comfortable. I also committed to buying an EXTRA LARGE bottle of Tums to fight off my heartburn. Up until that point I kept buying the tiny rolls thinking that my heartburn would disappear.  Hearing that my doctor seemed to think that I had time to spare made me both anxious and fairly upset – since I really wasn’t comfortable at all! I was in fact munching on Tums and trying to maintain a steady breath as I wobbled around my world.

My parents came down on Sunday, April 18th to celebrate my dad’s birthday by going to the Mariner’s game. We opted out of this experience simply because my body had started to tell me that labor was coming (TMI: loss of mucus plug) and the last two Mariner’s games we went to with Flip went into extra innings. So, I passed on sitting around Safeco waiting to see the M’s score.

Sunday night I woke to somewhat light contractions that were spaced out every twenty  minutes or so. By seven o’clock the next morning they had moved to being about 7 minutes apart. This was more of what I had imagined a typical labor experience might look like. Barry using his iPhone to track the contractions and me wandering around the house in his extra large robe breathing through them.

At one point I sent Barry to the store to pick up some pudding and cranberry juice since that was all my body wanted to eat. Thankfully, my brain has the memory of me trying to eat a pudding while a huge contraction came on and Barry ever so gently saying, “Here let me take the pudding from you.” While I was reluctant to let the pudding go I still had a perfect view of it untouched on the arm of our couch as Barry rubbed my back through the contraction.

With the end of each contraction I felt a bit of fluid leak out, but wasn’t concerned about it since I only assumed it was more of the mucus plug. We kept waiting for the contractions to get closer together or for me to be unable to breathe through them, but they did not. At about 10 o’clock I decided to call the doctor just to let them know what was going on and was immediately told to head to the Birth Center with my bags packed.

Ironically, as I hung up the phone the contractions all but stopped. Barry and I looked at each other dumbfounded and decided not to head to the hospital quite yet. After taking a nap and contemplating our decision I called the doctor’s office to let them know and they said that I needed to watch the fluid for an hour and if if didn’t ease up, head to the hospital.

So, we took the slowest walk in the entire world. We spent the walk laughing at my state because I was wearing yoga pants, a huge purple shirt, huge sunglasses and carrying my water bottle. I am sure that never had I taken so long to walk around our extended block. Looking back at that 30 minute cruise, I realize that I should have been at the hospital at this point.

Once we got back from our walk we looked at each other wondering if we should go to the hospital or not – since my contractions still were like a distant memory. We opted to grab our bags and head over to the 7th floor Birth Center. For some reason walking out of our house and leaving Sydney was really emotional and I stood there for a minute talking with our precious pup about the change that was coming. Even as I write this now, I feel a tidal wave of emotion.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” the nurse named Wendy told us as we walked through the doors of the Birth Center. She greeted us and took us to a small room to get my vitals and confirm what we thought we knew – that I had experience false labor. After strapping me into a few belts and taking some fluid sample she left us alone to wait for the results.

Barry and I stared  to each other and laughed at ourselves being typical first time parents showing up at the hospital for no reason. We made plans to go to Dairy Queen to get a blizzard and spend the rest of the afternoon hanging around HBHQ. We made plans to do anything that day other than have a baby!

After about an hour Wendy walked into our small room, smiled at us and said, “Plan on staying because your water broke!”