Alright, I guess it's time to share...

I've been wanting to share my birth story for well, um, almost a month now. The whole thing is going to be long, so I'm going to break it up into smaller posts, otherwise you might be here awhile...

So, here's how it started. I must begin with the day before. Tuesday, September 20th I went into work at 7pm and worked my normal 12 hour shift in labor and delivery. It was a fairly busy night and it seemed like every patient came in with her water broke. We joked several times that all we needed was for my water to break...Ha. Well, the little baby boy in my belly must have been listening. After my shift was over at 7am I was in our locker room changing back into my normal clothes (out of the hospital-issued scrubs we wear.) I had just gotten my pants on when suddenly they were soaked. My first thought was I had just lost control of my bladder...but... I had just gone to the bathroom less than 5 minutes before. I kept telling myself, "Noooo, my water didn't break. That would just be too crazy with the way we had been joking around earlier." I told a few of my co-workers what happened, but I insisted on at least trying to go home and pack a bag just in case. I was in total denial and I didn't want to look stupid in case it really wasn't broken. (I don't know what the percentage might be, but many women who come in thinking their water is broke end up going home shaking their head in confusion wondering how they could have wet themselves and not known it was pee...or other things, but we won't go there.) Anyways, I walked out with my friends and headed home, but didn't make it very far. I started having very noticeable contractions right away...along with more leaking. Wow, I really couldn't believe it was happening, but alas, it was.

I called Joe and told him what was going on. He immediately asked why I was leaving the hospital. Duh! But I was still insisting on trying to make it home real quick to get my things together, that is until I had to stop talking to him to breathe through a contraction. That's when my L&D nurse side kicked in and reminded me that this was my 4th baby, I was a VBAC, and I was still leaking like a bad faucet.  So, I gave Sarah and Brian a quick call to give them the scoop. I made sure to tell them not to freak out and drive too fast, but that their baby boy was deciding to make his debut a little earlier than we thought. (Prior to this, we had been planning on having my labor induced exactly one week later.) I was exactly 38 weeks that day, Wednesday September 21st.  Let the fun begin!