Our Memorial Day Misadventure

I realize I am behind on posting a 9 month bump photo. I will try to get to that tonight, but with all the moving and rearranging and misbehaving on your part (we'll get to that shortly) it's been hard to find time to take a lot of pictures.

But we are at nine months nonetheless. The doctor said that if I were to go into labor at this point there would be no stopping either of us. This is usually the part where I rehash what we are up to, what you are up to, and how excited we are for you to get here, etc. But given recent events, I feel I need to address some things instead. Now that we’ve both had time to reflect on what you did last Monday (Memorial Day), I would like to process your behavior and troubleshoot ways we can avoid that kind of acting out in the future.  In case you forgot, here is a recap of our little adventure:

(warning: this text below might invoke unseemly images in the minds of the reader)

Your dad and I had just returned from a very pleasant evening walk to the Public Gardens and back. Upon returning to the apartment, your dad went to the kitchen to retrieve a Cherry Coke, and I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. While washing my hands, there was an immense surge of water that gushed out of my body and all over the floor. I stood there, looking at myself in the mirror, completely stunned. My first thought was “did I just urinate all over myself?” But upon further reflection, I realized that couldn’t have been it since I didn’t have a full bladder, and more importantly, being a relatively experienced urinator in my life, what happened felt nothing like anything that had ever happened before.

I immediately sat on the toilet (pants still on) only to experience a second large gush of water descend from my body. At this point I managed to gather my wits about myself enough to call out to your dad for help. Dad rushed to the bathroom only to find me on the toilet, with my pants completely saturated. I told him that I thought my water just broke.

Now, before I go on, a little background context might be useful here. First of all, you were only 36 weeks gestation at that time, which means that if you were on your way you’d technically be premature. Even though you would be perfectly fine in the long run had that been the case, you still really needed a few more weeks to bake. Additionally, all of our stuff had already been packed, including all of your baby gear, since we were moving the next weekend. None of your clothes had been washed, we hadn’t installed the car seat, your cradle wasn’t finished, and we didn’t have much in the way of diapers. Also, it would technically be illegal for us to bring you home to our current apartment since it has lead paint. And finally, I WAS NOT READY FOR YOU YET.

Your dad found the phone number to Tufts and had me call the doctor-on-call so I could describe what happened. I spoke to the doctor and told her that I was 36 weeks along, and that I think my water just broke. She told me we had to pack our hospital bag and come to the hospital as soon as possible, because if my water had indeed broken, we would need to induce labor that night. I told her we’d be right over and I hung up.

Then I started to sob uncontrollably while still sitting on the toilet. I was startled, and I was genuinely scared, and I was truly unprepared for this. I had just gone to the doctor four days prior and he said that labor was nowhere on the horizon. How could this be happening? Your dad, bless his heart, did everything he could do to soothe me, while also trying to get things in order for us to leave. He calmly found a book with a checklist of things we’ll need to pack and began to open up boxes searching for various items. As he packed the cameras and the change of clothes and your little going home outfit and our insurance information, I just stood in the middle of the bedroom paralyzed by the decision of whether or not I should take out my contacts or leave them in. In the end, the only contribution I made to the hospital bag was a package of 20 elastic hairbands.

15 minutes later we grabbed your car seat, the hospital bag and my purse and headed towards the hospital. While Dad maneuvered through Red Sox traffic in downtown Boston, I just rambled on like a crazy person. I bounced from topic to topic, like how I had an important meeting that next day that I couldn’t miss, to how much I was looking forward to a sub sandwich after I delivered you since Tufts is pretty close to my favorite deli.

We got to the hospital and they immediately ushered me into the exam room. They performed a non-stress test on you to monitor your heart rate (which was strong as usual). They asked me a series of questions about what happened, the history of my pregnancy, whether I was still leaking fluid, and then performed an internal exam. And then they performed an ultrasound.

Now, prior to the ultrasound and during this whole debacle I had actually felt bad for you. On the drive to the hospital you were more active than you typically are for that time of night, and I envisioned you frantically flopping about looking for your lost amniotic fluid—like a goldfish that had jumped out of its bowl.

But once we saw you on the monitor, it became abundantly clear to me that you were in no distress whatsoever. In fact, you clearly seemed quite pleased with yourself. Not only was there ample fluid in my womb, but there was actually a slight excess. She said there was no way my water broke given how much fluid I had, and how active my baby was. You were practically dancing on screen.  It wasn’t until you quite literally opened your little hand and WAIVED AT THE CAMERA that it dawned on me that this whole thing was a ploy to get attention. It’s as though you were bored and schemed a way to rush to the hospital just to get your picture taken.

And why did I think that? Because the final diagnosis was that you head-butted my bladder and made it explode all over the bathroom. My water did not break. I did, indeed, just uncontrollably urinate all over myself.

And it was at that moment that I saw your dad practically melt on to the floor in relief (and probably a little bit of embarrassment). It turns out he was a little more stressed than he had lead on to during the whole ordeal, and the physical release of that stress on his part was palpable.

After attempting to regain some semblance of pride (I couldn’t), I asked the doctor if there was anything I could do to prevent this from happening again, and she said that unfortunately, no, there is nothing that can be done since some babies just do this for fun. Her only practical medical advice was to bring an extra pair of pants with me to work in the event that you have your way with me there.  And then they sent us home.

It was a long drive home, as your dad needed to remind me about every 41 seconds that I had wet myself. Epically so. I knew right then that I would never live this down. We returned home with no baby, a big mess to clean up, and a warm bottle of Cherry Coke. I fell asleep shortly thereafter out of pure exhaustion, but your dad stayed up for several hours because he was pretty wired and couldn’t relax. You really did a number on your parents that night.

So, let’s discuss how we can ensure that this will never happen again. Look, I get that it’s boring in there. It’s dark and cramped, and I’m sure you’re getting tired of the menu. Just know that your time is almost up and then you’ll be introduced to this world and all of its glory (again, don’t get your hopes up about your new apartment though).  However, in the meantime, rather than taking out your angst on my bladder, why don’t you play with your umbilical cord? I hear that babies do that from time to time. How about rather than head butt things, you use your head to think about ways you can be nice to your mom, especially considering what she will have to undergo in order to get you out in a short few weeks. Keep in mind that if you make my bladder explode at work, I will obviously have to quit out of pure humiliation, which means we will have no money to buy you fun things after you’re born. The bottom line is that from here on out you probably should just keep your hands to yourself. Hopefully I have given you some things to think about and this won’t become an issue.

One unfortunate thing that did come out of our little misadventure was that I apparently have high levels of amniotic fluid, which might be indicative of a problem with you--or it might be indicative of nothing at all. Tomorrow we have to go get another ultrasound to remeasure everything and see if things are okay. We're trying not to stress too much about it, but it's never fun to think that things might not be okay...especially this late in the game. I'll keep you posted.