My Almost Birth Story

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was relatively fearless.  Anxious of the unknown, sure.  But the needles, the labor pains, the idea of my water breaking unexpectedly at a grocery store were really not scary thoughts to me.

One thing, however,  did scare me.  One horror story that I had heard from so many people and was warned about in my birthing class.

Going to the hospital with “false labor” only to be observed for a while and sent on the walk of shame back home.  I just imagined the taunt, “faker, faker, faker.”  The nurses talking about you being a big baby as you walk out- hanging your head.  The idea of it made me ache.  How embarrassing must it be!  I vowed that I would never go to the hospital unless fluids were leaking out of me at an uncontrollable pace or the pain was so bad, there was no turning back.

Four pregnancies, I was at a 100% success rate.  If I went to the hospital to have a baby, I stayed at the hospital and LEFT with a baby!

“WAS” being the operative word.

This is where I backtrack and try and defend myself as not being an over-reactive pussy that doesn’t know her own body.

Sunday, I left my house in disarray so I could bring my daughter to a soccer game and then planned on getting milk from the grocery store.  I had EVERY intention of returning home after the hour and doing a deep cleaning in my house after the long messy weekend- JUST IN CASE!

I sat and watched the game then waddled to the car, and headed to the grocery store.  About 10 steps in, I felt a gush.  I am NOT a lightweight.  Let me repeat, I am NOT a lightweight.  I just figured it was bodily fluids that happen during this odd transistion my body was in.  And since my water had never broken in the past, I had no reason to think that THIS would be the time it did.  So I took a few more steps.  Gushed with each movement.  My jeans were saturated and I was mentally tightening up my pelvic muscles to keep the baby in.

“Oh God, put down the potato chips, girls, let’s go to the bathroom, I may have just broke my water!” I whispered.

When I said that, it was kind of exciting, like child birth in the movies. Boom- water breaks, you rush to the hospital doing the breathing in the car and voila- you have a baby.  None of that waiting game, medicine,  and inductions, that are not motion picture quality, that I have usually experienced.

In the large bathroom stall at the grocery store, I discovered that it wasn’t a movie.  It was blood.  All of it.  Lots of it.  My two youngest watched my excitement and anticipation turn to panic.

I reached for my doctor’s business card out of my purse.  Only to find out that my Dr. was NOT on call.  The one that was (a man I have never met) told me to go straight to the hospital.   As I walked out of the grocery store as if something was hanging out of my vagina, the freaking out started.  I called my husband at work- he didn’t answer his phone.  I called my mom.  I lost my shit.

“Slow down, I can’t understand what you’re saying!” she said, “Who’s bleeding?”

“Me and I’m scared!”

When I arrived at the hospital, I was put through a ton of tests.  I was dilated 3cm and they ruled out any dangers with the placenta.  They wrote off the blood as beginning of labor and admitted me.

Since I knew everything was OK, I needed control back.  I wanted MY doctor.  The bag I packed was random shit thrown together in a moment of hysteria.  My house was a disaster.   I could not return home with a fresh new baby WITHOUT a clean house.   I told the nurse that I needed to go home and clean my house.  She fought me and thought I was crazy.  The house doctor thought I should stay.  But the doctor on call for my doctor agreed to discharge me.

The nurse gave me orders to NOT clean, do laundry, or anything strenuous, and said if I did, that it was her thought that I would be returning later that night. But I HAD to.  If the labor was inevitable, I had to be ready, my house had to be ready or I would go crazy!

So I went home and cleaned- a lot.  After three hours of deep cleaning, I was more relaxed and back in control. I sat down and felt contractions.  I timed them for a couple hours.  They were getting stronger and were about five minutes apart.  I didn’t want to take a chance of waiting too long, so I woke up my husband and said we should go back.

Again, I was hooked up to monitors and checked.  Still at 3cm and the old school nurse started giving me those looks.  Those looks I had always dreaded.   It was as bad as I had imagined. The stares- they could have been in my imagination, but I felt them, nonetheless.   After a few hours, I took that walk of shame through the nurse’s station, bags in hand, failure to produce a baby, vowing that I will never return until a head is hanging out of me.

Well maybe I won’t wait that long.