a second birth story - part two

I was two days away from my due date

and I was grumpy and fed up.

So my husband had suggested I head to bed

and get some rest . . .

You can read the full part one of this story here.

Then I got that feeling you get sometimes as your just drifting off

where you feel like you are falling and you jump.

I looked at the clock and it was exactly 11.30pm.

I could have sworn I had heard or felt a popping

but I was so fed up I wasn't allowing myself to read anything into anything for fear of disappointment.

Besides, it's pretty unusual for your waters to go first in labour

and that is what had happened with the beautiful boy

so I figured the chances of that happening again were pretty slim.

But I lay still in the bed

feeling very awake

and very weird.

Nothing I could explain exactly,

just odd.

It sounds silly

but I wanted that possible popping to have been waters so badly

that I daren't move in case I was let down when I realised that wasn't what had happened.

I knew from last time that they don't tend to actually come out until gravity gives them a helping hand.

So I just lay there;

half wondering

but not really thinking that anything was happening.

In the end my curiosity got the better of me

and I decided to go to the toilet.

And as soon as I moved I knew.

I lept in the direction of the ensuite,

probably the fastest I had moved in months,

and somehow made it in time.

(I just knew we would never be able to deal

with knowing that my waters had got on our bedroom carpet.)

That warm little trickle, all too familiar from last time, happened

and my husband sat bolt up right in bed behind me.

“Lucy.....?” he said.

He knew something was up.

“I'm pretty sure my waters just broke.”

I asked him to pass me a maternity pad

and he snapped into 'functional man mode'

and jumped out of bed asking what we needed to do.

I decided we needed to do nothing.

My waters may have gone

but I wasn't having any contractions

and waters could go hours before labour started.

I was convinced that, as with last time,

it had only been some fore-waters

as there hadn't been loads.

So cool and calm as anything I went and got a towel to put on the bed

(to save our sheets and mattress from any mess)

and said that I thought we should try and get some sleep.

The husband nervously suggested that he might actually get up and do some work

as he had a report that needed writing

and was worried that if I went into labour in the night or the next day 
that he might not get a chance to do it.

It's crazy how things seem so hazy and yet so clear when labour is about to or has started,

and to me, this seemed like a really great plan.

He could get up to date on work

I could get a good nights sleep with the bed to myself.

I was suddenly feeling really happy and positive.

Something was finally happening

and the chances were that this baby would arrive before my parents went away

and I would be able to go into hospital

safe in the knowledge that my little man was happy in my absence.

You can read the next part of the story here.