The start of labor...i wrote this after it happened....

7/2 1:30AM:

I wake up to a slight gush in my underwear. Gasp. I get up and feel a little more leak out. I go to the bathroom, pee and see tinged blood on my toilet. the blood i had been waiting for! I go wake up jae and say "i think my water broke". he jumps up and we call the doctor. after some questions she tells me to head to the hospital. this is it!

we run around getting stuff together. By 2:30 we arrive at the hospital. On the drive there, i feel nothing. No pain or anything. I start to question if that was even my water breaking. But what else could it have been. I was contracting as well.

By 4 AM, I start to get examined. My very nice nurse Pat comes in with a short indian dude with a busted lip. He tells me hes going to do an internal on me and a speculum test to see if it was indeed amniotic fluid that leaked out. Ok, no problem.

my first clue of something wrong was when he asked the nurse "Are these sterilized gloves?" she says "no, they're not. the sterilized ones are in that drawer. that one...that one on the right. yeap right there". okkkk

she then says to him "have you done this before?"
"uhhh i think once".

I look at jae and jae looks at me.

Holy shit, its a fucking newb! I am pissed now. Let me preface this by saying i had asked my doctor weeks earlier if July 4th was a bad weekend to deliver and they said no, but what is possible that people say is that all residents start their rotation on July 1st. Frack! this is like this dudes first or second day. just my luck.

so he proceeds to do the speculum test. The nurse tells me "youre going to feel pressure, lots of pressure down there, ok?" i say "ok". he inserts it and i feel nothing. now she is coaching him...telling him where to swab etc. shes like "dont be shy". and she keeps telling me i will be feeling pressure. i feel nothing.

the exam is done. now onto the internal. OMG. he has fucking shaky hands!!! again, the nurse tells me "lots of pressure, im warning you, lots of pressure". i feel nothing. NTOHING EXCEPT HIS SHAKY HANDS INSIDE ME. I Swear i felt like i was getting molested at that point and i just wanted to scream. i put my arm over my face wishing this guy would fucking learn how to do an internal properly.

The nurse looks at me and says "are you feeling pressure?" and i say "no". she doesnt say anything.

Again, his shaky hands are feeling so gross right now. And he finally pulls out. he doesnt say anything and the nurse goes "well?" and he goes "ummmm....i think....myabe 2 or 3 cm dialated?"

this guy sounds like he just pulled that shit out of his ass. He either said 2-3 cmm or 3-4cm but i cant recall exactly bc i started tuning him out. But I do remember thinking "wow, if hes right, i made progress! Maybe this is labor"

then they tell me ok, now a real doctor will come in and make sure he was accurate. Whatever, just get the hell out of my room. I wonder why Nurse Pat didn't warn me. anyway....

about a half hour later, the on call doctor comes in and tells me that he doesnt think my water broke, but since he wasnt here for the speculum or internal that he wants to see it for himself first before releasing me.

So insert speculum and WOW HOLY MOTHER! this was the pressure i was supposed to be feeling. MY eyes squint and they are shut for most of the exam. I keep thinking, that fucking newbie totally did the test wrong the first time. The doctor then does the internal and says he doesnt feel like the bag ruptured and that i am only a fingertip dialated. Again, that asshole newb knows nothing!

so as a last resort, they wanted to see the level of amniotic fluid in the uterus on a sonogram. if i was leaking, there would be less fluid around the baby. but the sonogram showed i had a healthy amount of fluid in there. oh mid-way through the sonogram, the dr gets a phone call and literally drops the sonogram handle thingy and runs out of the room. apparently someone was about to give birth next door. he comes back like 15-20 mins later as if nothing happened, sat down next to me and continued ot resume the sonogram. Also, during the time we were in there, about 3 babies were born into the world. It was amazing to hear the babies cry....but i was super jealous at the same time. One lady, apparently didnt get any epidural, so i could hear her moaning in pain. MOANING. I could hear all the nurses telling her to push push push! finally after a loud grunt, a baby started crying. cool! anyway, i digress. my sonogram showed enough amniotic fluid.

so they decided to send me home.

I was disappointed and upset. and embarrassed. i really thought this was it. I am not one to call the doctor for every little thing and I really felt this gush was something happening. i asked them, if its not amniotic fluid, then what is it?

They said it could have been urine. That the baby would push against the bladder and casue it to come out. Or maybe my mucus plug because they saw a lot of brown discharge when doing the tests. Ok, i know what peeing in my pants feels like and this was totally different. Deep down, i really felt this couldnt have been urine, but at this point i was second guessing myself. So i get into the bathroom to change. As I come out, our room phone rings. It's about 5AM now.

It's the doctor from my OB office. the one i called when the "water broke" the first time. She starts asking me a lot of questions. Finally she tells me "all the tests are coming back negative BUT your story sounds like the real thing and im hesitant to release you in case you do have a small rupture". I am secretly relieved that someone does believe me. She tells me she will be in in 2 hours and can i wait and walk around a bit? She asks me to walk because I tell her that when i walked from the house to the car and from the car to the hospital, i remember leaking more. and she said that is consistent with water breaking. so i agree to stay.
They have these little strips that turn color when amniotic fluid tests positive on it, so they place a bunch of these strips onto a pad for me to wear for the next 2 hours.

For 2 hours, I walk around. Jae slept in the car but i wanted to keep standing and moving. We were dead tired at this point and starving, but needed to clear this up. Truthfully, as I was walking around, I realized this probably wasnt labor. I Was feeling fine, normal, and i was not leaking or squirting.

Finally at 7AM, we go back to Labor and Delivery. I change and get into bed. The nurse takes a look at my pad and says "man, i dont know what to make of this". I say "yeah thats what they said 2 hours ago too". I guess the color had changed on the strips but not the right color or something? there was also blood on the pad which they said automatically makes the test negative (another reason why they kept testing me, there was blood which changes the test results so they couldnt decide if it was the blood making the test negative or if there was really no amniotic fluid).

So I wait and finally the OB comes in. Thank God, shes sent from heaven seriously. She takes a look at my pad and i hear her say to the nurse "so what do you think?" and the nurse say "i cant make heads or tails of it". I hear the doctor say "hmm it does seem like a lot of fluid on the pad". The doctor comes to me and starts asking me questions again. She says based on my story, it sounds like the water did break....but the tests are coming back negative. She says if you do have a small rupture, you need to give birth within 24 hours to prevent infection, so thats why shes being extra cautious.

I then tell her, that im crazy but i toook a picture of my wet shorts after the first gush of water. She says "oh let me see". i have no idea why i took this picture with my camera. I TRULY dont. we were in a rush to get out of the house but somehow i take a picture of my wet shorts? weird. anyway, i show her. take a look for yourself. does this look like pee?



This wasnt even my underwear, it was my shorts that leaked through from the underwear. If this is pee, i peeed A LOT. IN MY SLEEP. she says, yeah thats a lot. She says "ok, let me do the tests on you myself just to be sure"

Again, speculum test and internal. She agrees i am 1 cm dialated, 50% effaced and she says it does not feel like my water broke or that there is any pooling of water inside. During her interal, she actually pushes the babys head up and away from the cervix to see if the head was acting as a plug, but she said no water came out when she pushed up on it.

She does a sonogram as well to measure fluid and says that there is a very very healthy amount of fluid inside. At this point, i think due to all the tests being done on me, my contractions are getting stronger. The doctor still hesitantly decides to send me home, saying everything with the baby looks fine and there is no sign of the water breaking but she says to monitor and if i have any more leaking at all to come back right away.

So we leave. We leave the hospital. So upsetting. I get Mcdonalds to console myself and go home and sleep from 10 - 4. When I Wake up i am getting some contractions. Strong ones. about 4:30, i decide to sit on the toilet bc I am feeling pressure down there and it feels like I have a to poop. When I wipe, it feels mucusy...I wipe again and bam! theres my mucus plug. or parts of it, not sure, but it looks like a big old brown booger. a huge one. This is a good sign that labor is going to come very soon. Contractions continue but in no real pattern. sometimes hard, sometimes soft. the frequency is all over the place.

to be conitnued