So, a week ago last Wednesday morning, Nathan woke up at midnight throwing up and Micah went to check on him while I got up to grab towels. Only, I got up & had a big gush of water... Micah heard it from Nathan's bedside and said, "What was that?" Half awake and in shock, I informed him my water had broken. I think his response was something like, "Are you serious?!" ;) At 38 weeks, we had been assuming we had at the very least another week!
After our midwife came, we found that baby was transverse. We weren't able to get a positive reading on the amnio swab at first, but we did end up getting a positive reading from the puddle, so with the risk of cord prolapse, and with water broken so that obviously baby couldn't turn, we transferred for a c-section.
It took us a short while to coordinate child care, grab the infant carseat out of storage, and pack a few essentials (as I supervised from lying on the couch), then we were on the road for the hospital. It felt totally surreal... up in the middle of the night, leaving my poor sick kiddo in the capable hands of his aunts, and suddenly having a totally different birth before us. As we drove we talked about what we'd ask for as far as c-section preferences... I knew that I wanted double layer suturing, skin to skin in the OR (ideally, on my chest right away, if not, skin to skin with daddy), no immediate swaddling or avoidable mama baby separation. It was all surreal to think about and talk about.
We're about the same distance from three different hospitals, and I assumed initially we'd transfer to one of the two bigger ones, but we ended up heading to the small town hospital instead. They have a ridiculously high c/s rate (usually that would be a red flag, but it was what we were transferring for!), are a small hospital (nurses and doctors more laid back and likely to go along with our requests) and they handle a lot of the local Mennonite's hospital births so they're a little more used to natural birth moms and how they think and what they'll prefer.
Since our midwife knew many of the staff, she called ahead and let them know we were coming in, so we skipped the ER & went directly up to L&D. The nurse we had was nice and was even sympathetic about us possibly winding up with a csection instead of our planned homebirth. She got us settled into our room, directed me to put on the hospital gown, then strapped me into bed on the monitors. This was all completely new to me, since I'd only even been in a L&D ward once, when visiting friends who had just had a baby. (And can I just say that bed was the least comfortable bed EVER?)
This is when we got our first inkling that we weren't going to have a c-section. The nurse palpated and frowned thoughtfully and said it certainly felt like a head down baby to her. We all gaped at her, because both our experienced midwife and Micah and I (who, while not exactly trained in the art of midwifery, are on our third baby and can tell the difference between a baby that is up and down and one who is sideways!) knew that baby had without a doubt been transverse before transporting. The nurse got amnio strips to test for broken water, and both of them came up negative. She suggested that I'd had a "fore-bag" break and that although we'd have to wait for the ultrasound and the doctor to see us, we could probably go home if we wanted to and if baby was head down.
The ultrasound tech wouldn't be there for a few hours, so we tried to relax and process everything. Mostly I played Words With Friends on my phone and distracted myself. Our main concern at that point was that baby would actually be breech and that they would not discharge us or allow a trial of labor. I was hopeful, though that even with a breech baby if I did not appear to actually be in labor or have ruptured membranes that they would let us go home.
Finally, the ultrasound technician wheeled in her cart and we got our first peek at our third little one... head down just like we were hoping! Chubby cheeks, tiny fingers and toes, and measurements matching right up with our dates! Although we had an overall good experience at the hospital, that was really the bright spot of the whole thing.
We waited a while longer to see the doctor on call. She agreed with the nurses guess about it merely being a fore-bag break, and said that they really didn't consider that my membranes were ruptured, so we shouldn't consider ourselves "on the clock" as far as labor went. She was fantastic and basically told us to go home and have a nice birth!
Still reeling, we checked out and headed to Walmart to grab an exercise ball (if labor did start, I knew I'd want it, but even if not I wanted it for good baby positioning) and other necessities, like
On the plus side, you wouldn't believe how much of the "to do before baby" list we got knocked out that day! ;)
