Monday, April 25, 2011

I went to work today - had a 12 hr shift and was going to be in charge.  I told Tim that I was actually excited to be in charge today so hopefully I wouldn't have to run around like crazy.  I was so very uncomfortable - 39 weeks, 4 days.  The Friday before at my doctor's appointment, Dr. Miller stripped my membranes and I had been having thick discharge all weekend but it had slowed down by Sunday afternoon.  I wore a pad to work today just in case and noticed that the drainage had increased again throughout the day.  However, now it was more thin and watery but still looked like the mucus discharge I had had all weekend.  I of course had a busier day then I had hoped and by 5pm I was exhausted, I was having what I thought was very strong braxton-hicks contractions and the drainage was increasing.  People at work could tell I was uncomfortable and I told everyone when I left I was going to call United Birth Center and see what they thought.  When I called the Birth Center I talked to a triage nurse, told her my story, and she thought I should come in and just get "checked out".  I called Tim next (as I'm still driving home) and told him he better put some clothes on because we were headed to the hospital.  We packed the car with our bags - "just in case" - but I really didn't think I was going to get admitted that night.  We checked into triage at 9:15pm.  I went back to an exam room, without Tim (per their policy), and waited.  When a nurse came in she hooked me up to the monitor, checked my cervix (3cm dilated), and then swabbed my va-jay-jay with a q-tip to check to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid.  The nurse didn't think it was amniotic fluid but sure enough, after 5 minutes it was very faintly positive.  She double checked the results with a second RN and they both agreed - my water had broke.  Tim was brought back to my triage room by this time and we were told we were getting admitted.  We were taken to our labor room by 10:15pm but the floor was very busy and the charge RN came in and apologized for the wait but there probably wouldn't be a nurse coming in until after 11pm (shift change).  I was fine with that - gave me time to digest what was happening, call work to tell them that sure enough I wasn't coming in the next day, we both called our parents to let them know what was going on (Tim had to let his dad know to drive up to our house and get poor Rylie - left there by herself!) and started to prepare for parenthood.