36 weeks!
I've been having contractions all weekend, which just feels like my entire stomach is tightening. They are painless and irregular, so I wasn't really freaking out about them. I've been told that when I start to have "real" contractions, I will know the difference.
Last night I woke up and both of my hands were so swollen, they were completely numb. I had to get up and walk around to let the blood flow back into my hands, but it took a while before I started getting sensation in my hands again. I went back to bed, and about 4 a.m. I woke up to my nose bleeding. WTF.
This morning I go into work, concerned about the swelling hands and nose bleed, and decide to head down to the nurse's office to get my blood pressure taken. While I am sitting in her office, I am holding a water bottle in my lap and I suddenly start to feel a slow trickle. I pick up my water bottle, thinking it is my water bottle, and the trickling continues. My blood pressure was normal, so I decided to go back to work. I get up, and the seat is wet, and she was looking at it a little concerned, and I said, "Oh, don't worry- I think it's my water bottle" and we both laughed it off. I went to work on the computer for about thirty minutes, and got up and my seat was wet, and my pants were also soaking wet. At this point, I realize that it probably wasn't my water bottle.
I look at my water bottle and it is completely full. I explain what is going on to another teacher and she says, "your water breaking isn't always a big gush like you see on the movies...sometimes it can be a slow trickle." I go back down to the nurse, and she is not surprised to see me at all. I explain to her that I think that my water did in fact break, so she said I should probably go to labor and delivery.
At this point, I am still in denial. I am 36 weeks, 2 days today, although I was measuring over 38 weeks at my last ultrasound on Friday. They told me to expect to go into labor soon, but this soon? 4 weeks early? I just didn't believe it. So I called Drew and explained to him that "I think my water broke" and he thought I was joking. Because that is apparently something that I would joke about. When it finally registered that I was being serious, the first question out of his mouth was "What do I do?"
I paused for a moment. I realized that even though I had basically prepared for this moment for a while, sometimes people can shut down when they start panicking. I reminded him that everything that we needed for the hospital was stored in the crib, and to just grab those things and come get me up.
45 minutes later he finally shows up and we head over to the hospital. They tested the fluid that had been leaking out of me, and it was not amniotic fluid. They did confirm that I was leaking something, but it didn't show up as amniotic fluid in the test. In all likelihood, it was either discharge or urine. That's right. My "water breaking" was actually the baby pushing so far down on my bladder, that it was pushing urine out of my body and I was unable to control it. Of course, that is to be expected when you have something that weighs as much as a bowling ball putting pressure on your bladder.
They did an internal exam and said that I was 0 cm dilated. They confirmed that I was having contractions, but they weren't regular, so they sent me home.
I'm supposed to go in on Wednesday for my first internal exam by my gynecologist, but I just gave their office a call after I left the hospital, and asked if I could just come in today because I wanted a second opinion. I had spoken with my friend Becky, who KNEW her water had broken, and by the time she had gotten to the hospital, her baby's head was essentially acting like a plug, and when they tested for the presence of amniotic fluid, she tested negative. She told them to test again, and they did, and she gave birth that day.
She told me that sometimes doctors make mistakes and to trust my intuition, and that if my water did break, but I ignore it, I have 24 hours to deliver the baby before I have severe complications. So I went into my doctor and she said that she didn't think that my water broke, but when she measured me, I was measuring 1 cm dilated. But many women can walk around dilated for weeks before they give birth. She knew one woman who was 4 cm dilated for four weeks before they finally induced her.
Meanwhile, during all of this, we were frantically texting and calling people and updating facebook...only for it to turn out to be a false alarm. So at this point, we have our bags packed, ready to go (again) and will refrain from sending out texts and facebook messages until we know for sure that it's not a false alarm. :) No point in getting people worked up and crying wolf over and over again!
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