37 weeks and my water broke! uh, just kidding.

So I made it 37 weeks (yayyy....please note my sarcasm).  37 weeks is generally considered full term in pregnancy however I've sort of been considering myself that since 35 weeks.  I really hit a low this week.  At my appointment on Tuesday I found out I've had little to no progress despite all the contractions I experienced over last weekend.  I really thought that something would have happened and I barely made it out of the doctor's office without crying.  I am just So. Done.  In addition, this little guy has made a habit of hanging out only on the right side of my belly.  He likes to keep his feet up in my ribs and it's resulted in a constant burning throughout the day.  I can't even sit straight up comfortably.  Standing helps but I also can't stand all day.  It's a very frustrating place to be in. 

My sister has been walking with me at the mall every few days.  We do about 1.5-2 hours each time and each time I contract constantly and have pressure.  Then it all stops after I get home and drink some water.  It's such a tease.  On Friday evening we went out again.  Just before 8 we decided to leave for home and as I was pulling my coat from the back of the car and standing in the parking lot, my water broke!  It was this uncontrollable gush of fluid that soaked me from my waist to my feet, even my beloved Toms.  I just sort of stood there in the dark parking lot, with a small puddle beneath me, and didn't know what to do next.  My sister came back out of the car and asked why I wasn't getting in.  I told her I either peed myself A LOT or my water broke.  She rushed over to my side of the car and confirmed what I thought, water.  So she got in the driver's seat and we took a quick trip back to her house for towels.  I called Seth and let him know what was happening and then called my doctor who said to just go over to triage so they could check things out.  I really couldn't believe this.  My water didn't break at the start of labor with Delia and I already had an epidural when they did it in the hospital.  I drove home and experienced a couple more small gushes just before getting in to the house.  Seth already called his parents who were on their way to stay with Delia.  I packed up the rest of my bag and thought, "well, this is really it....finally after all this preterm stuff".

It was a busy night at triage and we had to wait a little while for a bed.  Once you're settled they do a test to confirm that it is amniotic fluid leaking by swabbing and then looking at it under a microscope.  They asked me a lot of questions and I very quickly got the feeling that they didn't think my water had broken.  After looking under the scope, the midwife came in and told me it was not fluid but discharge and they were sending me home.  I was shocked.  I told her again how much had come out of me.  I knew it wasn't pee and I had never heard of discharge soaking your pants down to your feet.  It was a gush of liquid, not some little trickle.  I was (and still am) so upset.  I couldn't believe I was going through this after everything else.  She said sometimes there are pockets that can build up and release (again, never heard of this before) but would do an ultrasound to measure the fluid just to be sure.  A resident came up to do the ultrasound and he said I had an abundance of fluid (maybe a little more than average) and a healthy looking baby.  So that's it, I wasn't in labor and home I went.  I was angry, emotional, upset and I cried. 

I know these last few weeks are a drop in time but they feel so long when you are going through them.  I always remind myself so that I don't say something foolish to a pregnant woman at the end of her pregnancy.  I find that people very quickly forget how miserable they were and lack the sympathy that we overly hormonal preggos need.  Soon this guy will come and I will have him in my arms.  I just really hope I don't have to go through any more false alarms.  Emotionally, I don't think I can handle it.