The epic Journey called Birth- PART 1 (Show... or no Show?)

I think its starting to happen... It is 6.16am in the morning (2 weeks before my due date) and Ive just had my second "show" (I had one yesterday morning also) and no this was not a SHOW with songs and dancing and applause (to my dismay not even a costume change!). It was more a sleepy stumble to the loo, wee, wipe,,, hang on... what? something stringy is kinda attached... oh lovely I have just given birth to part of a jellyfish. You know the clear kind you see washed up on the beach... bet your never going to look at those the same again! and when you do please think of me (it may be 6 months or a year from now, you're on holidays, strolling along the beach, salty breeze in your hair, sun on your back, ughhh watch out, dont step on it, its a glob of clear goo, its a jellyfish,,, Naaaah! its just somebody's "Mucus Plug". What a charming combination of words. Couldn't they call it something less resembling snotty gunk and something more exciting like, the "baby doorway" or  the"welcome goo" or "its-almost-showtime-yay-you-are-going-to-get-your-body-back-no-more-peeing-20-times-a-night-and-pins-and needles-in-the-ribs-Thank-CHRIST-please-let-the-labour-be-fast-and-not-kill-me" hmmm.... okay so granted that last one is a bit long... let's stick with "Welcome Goo".

So it was the second morning in a row I had experienced the "Welcome Goo" and I was starting to get excited! I began to experience what felt like period pain. It was easy to handle just laying on my side with a hot wheat pack (as you would with day 1 period aches). My hubby (Andee) headed off to work as usual (his work is an hour by train into Melbourne docklands) so we were fairly safe that even if things started to really happen that a speedy but expensive cab ride could probably return him to me in 40 minutes. This being said I started to get a little scared after he left and rang him a bit teary when he was on the train "I am by myself, I am a bit scared... what if the pain suddenly gets really bad? what if I need someone's help?" (Andee managed to convince me that we have darling neighbours close by if I urgently needed someone and an ambulance call was just minutes away if shit really hit the fan). I gave in and agreed, I knew he was right... I knew it was probably going to take another day to really get things going... but still I was scared, I wanted someone to talk to, to stroke my head, to tell me everything was going to be okay.

After 2 hours of period like pain I managed to fall back asleep and when I woke up 2 hours later everything had stopped again. I was disappointed... I wanted to get this SHOW on the road! To keep me distracted my darling friend Linda dropped around with coffee and muffins (YUM!). Linda is also pregnant (2 months behind me) so we poured over every detail of the "Welcome Goo"and what the pains felt like so far and speculating on what was going to happen next??

  Me getting bored on the fit ball...nose pick shot!

With the pains subsided Linda and I headed out for lunch and a little walk around a few shops. It filled in some time and kept me distracted from the anxiety of what was to follow. By the evening no more pain had returned so I text 2 of my lovely neighbours to confirm that Canasta five cards night was still on at my house at 8.30pm. This was a fairly new hobby of ours that we had started about a month prior and we had been meeting once a week for a late evening game of cards. The girls had joked the week before "How funny would it be if you went into labour whilst we were playing cards........"

Hmmmm perhaps we were predicting the future because...

The girls arrived at 8.30pm, I had the dining table all set up ready to play and had replaced my chair with one of those bouncy "fit balls" to try to bring things on. I was just starting to feel some little twinges again and was feeling quite excited. We played a few rounds sipping on peppermint tea and munching on peppermint Aero chocolate (YUM!). I mentioned to the girls that I had requested Andee pick me up some raspberry leaf tea on the way home but he couldn't find any (its suggested raspberry tea can help bring on labour). This sparked Emma (one of my neighbours) memory, she had raspberry leaf tea and a little box of essential oils to help bring on labour (that she herself had used just a year and a half earlier with her darling little girl Scarlett) So she headed out into the pitch black night, up my EPIC steep driveway to retrieve them and see if we couldn't get this SHOW on the road!
With the tea made the girls were encouraging me to gulp it down in between bouncing on the fit ball and rubbing Clary Sage oil on my belly (oh and concentrating on a serious game of cards too, of course!). At about 10.30pm I hopped up to go to the toilet and felt a hot rush of water down below. I stopped, held my hand on my crotch and looked at the girls wide eyed. Shouts, hoots and yelps followed with excitement!!! IT WAS HAPPENING!!!

So what did we do?...

Continued playing cards OF COURSE!

I would gulp some tea, play my hand and then the girls would make me pace the room as they played their hands. More hot waters followed and some slight twinges and tightenings started to happen. I text my hubby Andee (who was out at his folks place) to say my waters had gone and to check when he was getting home. Andee arrived home at about 12.30am in the morning and was in dis-belief "Are you sure it was really your waters? Its two weeks before your due date? there is only a 1. 5% chance of giving birth 2 weeks early in your first pregnancy, I googled it on my way home" (of course he googled it! ha ha ha) "Yes I am sure, do you think I just accidentally pee'd myself and I am just getting my wee hole and vagina hole confused?"(I think he did think that was a viable possibility! HA HA HA).

Cards, tea and essential oils all helped to get the "Show" on the road!

The girls placed bets on bubs arrival time and departed just before 1am, wishing us a speedy and not too traumatic birth experience. Andee started running me a bath and I rang the hospital to give them an update. You are advised to contact the hospital as soon as your waters break or if your labour is progressing (I guess so they have an idea on who they are likely to expect in the coming hours). I was hoping they would just let me stay home to enjoy my super early morning bath, but alas non. We were advised to make our way to the hospital asap, they needed to check if the waters had really gone. If the waters had gone and everything else was normal, we would be sent home again (just given a timeline for induction if the birth had not progressed after 72 hours). The reason behind this is that the bag of waters acts as a defence barrier to infection and once this is broken that defence is compromised.

So we headed out into the night with just our wallet and phones (no need to take the bags, snacks and camera yet, surely...

BIG MISTAKE!... (to be continued)