I stayed up late as usual helping my two children go to bed, surfing the net, doing some last minute cleaning, and making lunch for my husband. I finally crawled into bed next to my two year old son, Calvin, around 2:30 in the morning. He sleepily snuggled up to me and nursed for about a minute. . . and then we both fell asleep.
About five hours later I awoke feeling a couple spurts of liquid leaking out from between my legs--urine, I supposed, from my bladder that was squished by a low-lying baby. I drowsily hurried to sit on the toilet. A surprising amount of liquid came out. I finished going “potty” and stood at the sink washing my hands and noticed more fluid leaking. Wide awake now, it dawned upon me that my water must have broke.
I noticed that I felt unusually cold. I felt so cold that I was shaking. I turned up the heat. Then, after I called my midwife and left a message, I laid down on the bed with a towel between my legs and tried to rest and relax. I finally talked to my midwife on the phone at about 8:40am. I told her my water had broke, and she explained that my contractions could start in two or three hour. . . or in five or six hours. The inflatable pool we had bought for me to give birth in wasn’t blown up yet, so she suggested that I ask John (my husband) to come home from work so he could get it ready.
She asked if my amniotic fluid was clear. . . it was. And she asked me if I had felt my baby move since getting up that morning. I hadn’t noticed any movement since the night before, so she suggested that I drink some juice to see if that would get my baby moving. After hanging up the phone, I noticed my first small contraction.
I called my mom at work to let her know that my water had broke. She planned on coming to the birth, but she couldn’t leave yet because she was busy with a customer. After I talked with her, a few minutes before 9:00 I called John’s work and left a message for him to come home.
