The Birth Story ~ Part I ~ My Water breaks

Well it’s been 9 weeks since Keenan was born. And it’s been a very busy 9 weeks. I had wanted to get my account of Keenan’s delivery posted earlier but I’ve been putting all my efforts into breastfeeding. I’ll mention more about that later. I’m going to break down Keenan’s delivery into “The Birth” entries so I can include a ton of details without feeling like I’m writing an epic! So here goes…

Wednesday, May 10/2006
Sean and I had a relaxing dinner together and afterwards he took to the computer and I headed to the bathroom for about the 100th time that day. Being one week and one day overdue I wasn’t going too far without keeping a washroom in view. So I had my pee and started to feel that things were feeling a little “different” down south. I had read that before labor starts it’s pretty common to feel a little anxious. Well, I wasn’t quite there yet but I could very clearly feel where things were headed. I was pretty sure I was about to experience my water breaking. I climbed into bed and within minutes I was calling out “SEAN, I NEED A TOWEL”. I was feeling the amniotic fluid gush out and then anxiousness that I’d read about started to settle in quite nicely. After a near wipe out on the hardwood floor (not due to slipping in the amnio fluid!) while getting me the towel Sean helped me stuff the towel in my pants and helped me back to the washroom. We were discussing whether or not we should call Jess to come into town asap or wait a bit when Sean’s supervisor called. He was chatting away with Sean about a fax for the next day’s classes when Sean finally cut in with a “Uh Sato-san I don’t think I’ll be going to class tomorrow as Nancy just went into labor”. That wrapped up the conversation pretty quick. In the meantime I was feeling more leaking so we decided to call Jess. While Sean and Jess were talking I looked at the towel and it was stained with a dark yellow fluid and lots of little yucky bits of something gross. Not a good sign. The condition of the amnio fluid really got my anxiety going. I showed Sean the towel just as Jess asked, “is the fluid clear?” “Ahhh nope, definitely not, we need to leave right away”. Just to back up and review our plan for getting to the hospital…We gave Jess our car about 2 weeks before the due date since she no longer had one and we figured we’d call her and she’d pick us up and take us to the hospital when the “time” came. She lives about 45 minutes away and had her bags packed and ready to head our way on a moments notice. We also had a back up list of 4 people “just in case”. So after Sean hung up with Jess he called the hospital to let them know what the amniotic fluid looked like and that we would be coming soon. After hearing about the discoloration they wanted us there immediately. Sean called Jess back but she had already left. So he tried Alixe, back up person #1 on our list. She wasn’t home. Crap! Then the doorbell rang. It was Sato-san, Sean’s supervisor! He came right over after he hung up the phone with Sean to take us to the hospital. A sticky note on our door letting Jess know we were on our way to the hospital would have to do. At this point I had really calmed down and was very happy that I would soon be meeting our little baby. We loaded our stuff into Sato-san’s car and I climbed into the back seat with a fresh towel (Sato-san’s car has cream colored upholstery). He drove the speed limit (50 km/hr) all the way there. It was a really foggy night. Nobody else was out on the road and I was really happy to have a few minutes of quiet before everything changed. I was sitting in the back seat by myself and I remember feeling really amazed and amazing. Getting pregnant and being pregnant was the easy part now the real work was about to begin. Perhaps that’s why it’s called “labor”. I was a little nervous but overall quite relaxed. I also felt really happy about the fact that I was starting to go into labor naturally as I was scheduled to go into the hospital late in the afternoon on the following day to be induced. Finally, everything we had prepared for and read about was finally starting to take place.