Broken Waters

On Monday night, as I lay in the dark of my hospital room, I felt fluid begin to leak in trickles from my vagina. Between 9 and 11pm, I had filled a pad and called the midwife who proceeded to stare at, and then sniff the pad. Yep, you heard it here first. Midwives sniff used pads and my god I respect them for it.

It was decided that I'd have a third pH test for amniotic fluid only this time it was performed without a speculum. So the little stick swab was just kind of poked up in there. At the time I was grateful to have avoided the dreaded speculum, but what I didn't know was that this was likely to come back and bite me later. Anyway, within a couple of minutes the stick, which works like a pregnancy test, showed a very feint second line and it was agreed that my waters had indeed broken. PPROM. Preterm premature rupture of the membranes. Things swung into action pretty quickly.

A lovely midwife attempted to find a vein but succeeded only in making my cry. Eventually they got a vein and things moved fast. They took blood and started me on both oral and IV antibiotics. Once your waters break, they want to avoid an infection getting to baby. I was given the first of two steroid injections which would help baby's lungs develop quickly in case they had to get them out quick smart. To prevent contractions I was given another oral drug and then came the consent form.

In the dark, lying on my side, alone, I was walked through every risk associated with a c-section. Moreso, I was walked through the risks associated with having to do a classic c-section as opposed to a transverse c-section because bub is still so small. In conclusion the doctor warned that after a classical c-section, labouring naturally with a consequent baby would not be possible. Labour is out of the question for me anyway so dismissing that as a stress felt very nice. It all felt very real. It was happening. This baby was very likely coming.