Due Date

Yesterday, April 6, was my due date.  It never really meant much as a milestone because I knew that one way or another, there was no way that I would have an April baby.  Instead, I sit here on my couch, nursing my 3 1/2 week old baby girl while I type out this post.

But let me back up.  As I mentioned in my last post, I finished up work a few days past 34 weeks.  I had appointments twice a week - Thursdays at the hospital for NST/doppler/growth scans/AFI (fluid measurement) and Mondays with my OB.  The Thursday appointments were full of entertainment because my blood pressure was just above the 140/90 threshold and caused a lot of excitement with the nurses (and earned me extra bloodwork/24 hour urine samples).  The techs also always seemed to fail to read my appointment information correctly and did growth scans way too often (you're not supposed to do it more frequently than every two weeks because of the tolerance for error in the measurements. In fact, I had one doctor measure the baby's head one day and then 10 days later, someone else measured it smaller).  It was quite a roller coaster, but in the end, my OB kept me sane throughout the craziness and assured me that my body was doing fine and that all the excitement was just due to protocols that the people at the hospital had to abide by.

I used this extra "free" time to get through my to do list.  I finally bought a car seat and diapers, I washed clothes and set up the changing area...and we bought a minivan. 

On Sunday, March 9th, I hit 36 weeks.  I started to let myself believe that I could end up with a healthy baby that just might be able to come home with me.  At the same time things started happening.  That weekend I had a little bit of brown spotting that showed up in the mornings over the weekend.

At my Monday appointment, I had to do another NST just to make sure that it wasn't a placental abruption, and the baby passed with flying colors.  I had just bought myself a few more days to keep the baby inside.

That night I woke up around midnight to use the bathroom when I realized that I had lost my mucus plug.  Thankfully, my doctor was on call that night, so I called in, got talked off the ledge again, was given instructions for when to go to the hospital (my two previous daughters were induced), and was told to go back to sleep. 

Things were quiet the next few days.  I laid very low.  If I were up and about, my blood pressure would rise, so I spent much of the days laying on the couch working my way through a pile of books that have been on my list for several years.  My doctor checked in on Wednesday afternoon while I was out indulging in a slow walk with my dog and we agreed to check in the next day after my NST appointment (we were expecting more excitement due to my BP).

However, I never made it to that Thursday appointment.  That night (Wednesday), at 36w3d, my water broke around 9:15.  It wasn't a huge gush...it reminded me more of the leakage you get when using progesterone suppositories.  I changed my panty liner and let myself be in denial for a few minutes, but when it happened again (and it was still clear fluid), I knew that this was it.  I waited for my husband to finish putting the kids to be and to start doing crunches in the family room before I told him.  He took a shower, I called in to the on-call doctor who told me to head to the hospital, an then I called my mom to come stay with the kids.

Once she arrived and we wrote the kids a note, we headed to the hospital around 10pm.

I looks like this story requires more than one post, so I will be back soon with a picture or two and the rest of the story.