my-speck

Good morning little speckle!

I’m very excited – you’re on your way. I woke up this morning at about 4:30 am with a very (in my mind) distinct “pop, , pop” feeling and sound. I was lying in the lower bunk of a bed at the place where P&J were getting married, with your Dad above me in a bunk and J (an obstetrician friend) sleeping in the same room. I remember thinking at the time, oh, that’s a bit strange. I think I recalled that you’d given me a few very strong kicks when I’d been trying to sleep a bit before. I was obviously half-asleep, because I just lay there for a minute (or what seemed like a minute), thinking ‘oh, well if that was my mucus plug then surely I should be able to feel something. Mm.. Maybe I’m just imagining it or dreaming’, when suddenly I felt a bit of a trickle in my pants and by the time I got up and made it the 1.5 m to the bathroom I had a rather large gush of water running down my legs and all over the bathroom floor. I think I just took my pjs off and stared at the water for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure what to do – part of me wanted to just go back to bed and not wake anyone up, cause I figured that it would be a while before you came. It felt pretty weird, cause I guess I just never thought of my waters breaking but not really being in labour. I was always expecting that would happen later – when I saw your aunt 2 be born my mum was in labour for a long time and then her waters were broken, and the video we watched at antenatal classes the woman’s waters broke right before the second stage.I shook myself out of that, and woke up your dad, telling him “I think my waters just broke”.

Anyway, of course J woke up too, checked with us that it was all the right colour and I felt fine etc. I had a quick shower and shoved some clothes on and pushed everything that was laying around into our bags, and we headed out to the car. We threw everything in the car, appropriated a few towels from the place we were staying so that I could sit on them (for some reason your dad thought I didn’t have any pads packed and I just didn’t even think of it) and then drove off into the darkness, just around 5am. Your dad looked a bit shakey as we negotiated the roads around the back of Uki in a very hard rain. It was a bit foggy too. But we made it to Murwillumbah, where we stopped so your dad could phone the hospital (we were out of range until then) and grab something to eat.

While your dad was in the store and on the phone, I walked up and down the street, thinking, “this is weird”. I’d started to have contractions in the car. Well, what I guessed were contractions. I had been trying to describe them to your dad – I managed to tell him they were just little bands of tension that started down low and worked their way up to just over my pubic bone, with occasssional jabs up further around my belly-button height. They started and stopped in the car journey. What was consistent was the leaking, which felt good each time it happened, like the pressure that had built up was being released. I could tell I was having mild contractions as this is what generally made more leaking happen.

We continued up the road as the sky lightened and we ran into more cars along the way. I put the radio on and we bopped along to some music and chatted. I was having weird thoughts about all sorts of things. We stopped at a service station and I enjoyed peeing immensely.

… this is getting hard to type (its 11:04 am…)… I seem to be having contractions every 5 minutes and they are a bit engaging.

…later at 12:15…

yes, the contractions are getting a bit stronger. And your dad has been timing them. Hopefully they won’t stop and start. They are pretty engaging when they occur now, and they hurt a little bit. You are wriggling down there a little bit. I was lying down on my side when a big one came before and it was horrible. I panicked a little bit, cause I knew I couldn’t get up. But after it finished I reminded myself that it just lasts for 30 seconds or so, and really isn’t that bad. just need to change positions. Lying on my side wasn’t great. Standing up is ok, but when the contractions come now I’m asking your dad to help me, and I am putting my hands around his neck while he rubs my sacrum. That is more tolerable, and is more comfortable as I have somewhere to rest my head. I’ve just tried one on the fitball, where I’m sitting at my desk typing to you. This feels good moving around between contractions, but as soon as it started I really didn’t want any movement at all. I just wanted to be still. So you dad sat behind me and tried to get me to relax my mouth.

….. End of ability to write…