One year ago tonight

One year ago tonight my water broke. That year just flew by. The following is the article I wrote on what happened. It is very long, so I am posting it in pages in the days leading to Josh's first birthday. I will also have pictures of him in the NICU, so be prepared.



When your eyes snap open from the deepest sleep, you know instantly that you are either waking up from a nightmare or worse, waking up to one. When my eyes opened in my dark bedroom on an early January morning in 2006, I knew something was very wrong. I was seven months pregnant with my second son, but life was about to change dramatically.

At first I was confused. Why I was awake? Did I hear something? Did the baby kick me? Everything was dark and still. I figured I might as well go to the bathroom, as that trip was inevitable at some point in the next hour or so. When I stood, a trickle of liquid ran down my leg and I knew my water was breaking.

The mind is a funny thing. My denial was so strong that I actually convinced myself that it wasn’t happening. I looked at the clock. 5:30am. I thought if I could just crawl back under the covers, the whole thing would have been a dream. I lay there awake, reasoning with myself that there was no way this was happening. I tried to remember how far along I was. During your first pregnancy you know to the day what age your baby is, but I could only remember that I was around thirty weeks.

At 6:00am the alarm clock rang out and my husband, Matt woke up. He headed for the shower. As he walked away, I called out to him, "I think my water might have broke." He was surprised and worried, but I did a good job convincing him, as I had convinced myself, that there had to be another reason. I called my Mom. I told her what was happening. It was only a little bit of fluid, I explained to both of them.

My Mom thought I should call the Doctor immediately. She began telling me of a friend whose water broke in the car and she had the baby hours later. As she spoke, I heard a sound coming from the hall. I told her to hold on, leaned toward the door and listened .Music. It was not just any music but music from a box in the nursery. I crept into the hall and stared into the dark room. My blood ran cold. I told my Mom I was calling the Doctor at once.

The OB’s office did very little to feed the doubt I had built in my head. Every question the nurse asked me, I had to answer honestly. Her growing concern unnerved me. She said she would call the Doctor and call us back. We waited. Matt kept dressing for work. I stared at the clock. It took her four minutes to call back. "He wants to see you right away. Come to the office at the hospital." Then she said the words I would never forget, "Pack a bag."

A bag? Just the idea of it caused my mind to go blank. I started running around the room in a circle, like a dog chasing its tail. Matt stood watching me for a moment before clearing his throat and telling me to sit down, that he would get my bag. I know now that I was in shock. I was incapable of rational thought for the most part. I threw a bunch of things in the bag, got dressed and waited. My Mom was on her way to stay with our oldest son, Ryan, who was still asleep.

We managed to get out of the house by 7:15am and I began calling my best friends to tell them where I was and what was happening. I called Melissa first. She and I were pregnant together. She was due a few weeks after me. Her first son was a preemie and she had spent this pregnancy worried that her daughter would arrive early. She cried at the news and I cried too, worried more for her getting upset than I was about me. She was so worried that it made me not worry about myself for a little while.