birth story, part1

I have a confession:

I am not sure what to write about Della's birth story.

I mean, I have one, but it is more of a fractionated fairy tale, or a hallucination, not a record of events. Some folks have this amazing clear narrative-- " At 10:45 they placed the epidural, I was 3 cm dilated and completely effaced, my contractions were coming 3 minutes apart and lasting 72 seconds"...

Um, yeah. Mine is more like a series of impressions, a much more hazy rendering. So I have been having a very hard time figuring out where to begin, what to say, what to share.

Well, that's never stopped me here before, so! Lucky you! You get Birth Story a la Kate. There will be no unicorns. Except for that one.

Let's begin with a brief overview of anticipated narrative arcs:

early diagnosis of placenta previa: scheduled c section 39 weeks

vasa previa: scheduled c section 36-37 weeks

no vasa previa! but placental venous lake: scheduled c section 39 weeks

no placental lake! vaginal birth! but since IVF, additional monitoring (NST week 38?/ BPP@ 40 weeks), and kate's increasing fears that Something Bad Will Happen, maybe we should induce...

week 40 comes, begin discussions about induction, make tentative date for week 41...witness kate's increasing fears about induction, culminating in deciding to give the baby a few more days to show up the old fashioned way (NST and BPP show baby is thriving)...

...

week 41...

All day regular BH with new lower back awareness...

to my immense surprise, my water breaks at 6:45pm while standing at the stove serving myself dinner (turkey meatloaf YUM). It is just this: remarkably hot liquid, silent (no pop, or deep percussion), suddenly exiting my body. 5-6 tablespoons...I put in a liner, and a second little gush happens right away...this time I can see it (clear/pinkish, no odor) call the doc. He calls back instantly, tells me to go in to get checked to see if it really was my water breaking since it matters and these might be the only gushes I get... Enter beginning of surreal/dissociative feeling.

Jauntily make drive to hospital, enter birth center, meet E, our first nurse. She asks me to change, get nekkid, into circus tent sized hospital robe... clean catch urine sample, then onto the bed for testing (damned uncomfortable dry vag swab, 1 min, then paper strip on finger-- both mostly external in clean zone after clean catch...), monitoring (NST-ish for baby heartrate and contractions--mine were every 5 min or so--still painless). Both tests say no water broke, which I disagree with silently as I am quite aware of liquids that exit my body in small warm gushes...

I don't remember if she checked me for dilation then or later or both...

she sends us home but says she will not be surprised to see us again during her shift.

We get home and as I get out of the car I laugh and say "see? it couldn't be labor yet since it is not snowing..."

finished the cold supper, aware I might need fuel...

and to bed, nerves jangled, and this is where the narrative starts to get really fuzzy.