Hospitals, high heels and hilarity

**Note. I'm catching up on my blog. Now that I've sufficiently lost my mind enough to think I can manage an infant and working from home and not driving myself and everyone else crazy, I'll be back online more. I have so many blogs written in my head, I could spend a week just blogging. But I won't, because that would take away from the 2.5 hours a night I am sleeping.**

Even in labor I manage to get myself into situations that create fodder for "I have this friend/daughter/relative..." conversations for friends/parents/relatives' conversations for years to come. Conversations that involve stifled laughter and eye rolling and "can you believe its?!" liberally sprinkled throughout.

Saturday night, September 8, Himself and I went out to dinner at a local Brazillian steakhouse with Father-in-law #2 (FIL2) and Nephew (13). FIL2 raved about dinner. I'm not normally a carnivore of much repute, but I enjoyed the chicken hearts (the only organ meat I'll even consider touching), the bacon-wrapped turkey, the grilled pineapple and parmesean-crusted tomatoes. FIL2 paid for dinner, proclaiming it his birthday present to me. It ended up being the only traditional birthday present I received.

I had been in unproductive labor for 4 1/2 days. Earlier in the day, I had started feeling like an old woman with bladder control problems. Curious, I hauled Himself and his medical knowledge into a corner to ask if I might just be leaking amniotic fluid. He assured me I was probably just crazy and assured me that having bladder leakage at this stage of pregnancy was normal.

Still, through dinner, feeling uncomfortable, and in a great deal of pain, I pondered it. Pondered it enough to lose the rest of my sanity and convince Himself that we should just "stop by" the hospital because it was "on the way" home (okay, it's not really, but it was less out of the way than doing the sane thing and going home to drop of FIL2 and Nephew and pick up my hospital things "just in case" - I was doing my environmental duty by saving gas).

Himself let me off in front of the hospital. I, dressed in stiletto sandals and a skirt, marched myself to the Labor & Delivery desk and confessed that my husband had convinced me it was probably nothing, but could someone check to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid?

I'm not sure what I thought they would do, or how they would check, but it certainly didn't involve being checked into a delivery suite and being asked to strip down to my birthday suit and don a backless nightie. After all, I was scheduled to be induced in exactly 25 hours. I was not ready to have the baby NOW, never mind the fact that she was 5 days overdue.

I gave the nurse an incredulous look. "Um, are you sure? I just want you to check to see if I am leaking anything." I'm quite positive she rolled her eyes without me looking. She then said, "Sweetheart, if you ARE leaking amniotic fluid you are not leaving this hospital without a baby."

I wasn't dumb enough to know that having one's water breaking means baby needs to come relatively soon afterward, but I was dumb enough to think that leaking amniotic fluid wasn't quite the same as having it gush down your legs.

A new nurse stuck her head in, after I was sufficiently naked and shivering - still in pain and now forced to lie on my back with the baby monitor (I'm surprised no one has come up with a torture device akin to forcing a pregnant woman in labor to lie on her back attached to a machine). She asked, "Is your husband downstairs in registration?"

Me: "Um, no. He's in the car."
Nurse: "Why is he in the car." (I'm certain she was trying not to laugh at me)
Me: "We are on our way back from dinner. I just came in to be checked. Besides, my FIL2 and Nephew are with us."
Nurse: "You need to call your husband. You'll want him here."

Himself parked the car, leaving FIL2 and Nephew in a dark parking garage until we knew what was going on (for the record, we did offer to let them drive our car home, but FIL2 declined). He came in and edured the teasing and cajoling from the nurses who thought it hilarious that a) I had marched myself into the hospital in labor, obviously overdressed and b) that he had let me (this is because they didn't know that trying to control either of us is akin to trying to train a housefly not to land on food).

Himself settled down in the chair next to the torture device (my bed). A resident, looking all of about 20, came in to ask a million requisite questions - another thing I had not anticipated. I bit my tongue so as not to say "Okay, get on with the test already. I need to get home. I have enchiladas to make, a kitchen to clean and another batch of laundry due before I come back tomorrow." Another resident, this one a male looking like he may have actually made it to 21, came in and announced that he would be shoving a cold, sterile, metal instrument into my nether regions.

He did so. I did my best not to kick him. He proudly proclaimed that it appeared that I was probably not leaking anything serious and informed me the lab would be doing tests to confirm.

We waited. I fidgeted, driving everyone within hearing distance of my room insane. After 90 minutes, a nurse came in and implied I would be staying. Me, with all my medical knowledge, informed her that the resident had said it didn't look like there was any amniotic fluid. She looked at Himself and said, "I wouldn't be too sure. The lab is running the tests again."

Minutes later, the resident returned, explaining that there were trace amounts of amniotic fluid leaking out and that I would be staying until Baby Girl arrived. I didn't bite my tongue this time, reminding him about the enchiladas, the dishes, the kitchen and FIL2 still out in the car - not to mention the fact that I was completely physically and mentally unprepared for this.

The nurse joined us and looked at Himself. She said to him, "She does realize that this baby is OVER DUE, right? That she has to come sometime." Indignent, I reminded both of them that I had resigned myself to a scheduled birth - which was not due to occur until the following evening.

So, there I was, wearing make-up and jewelry, stripped down to a diaper (to prevent the fluid from running down my legs) and a backless nightie, strapped to a torture device and realizing just how terrified I was to labor. All of a sudden, my carefully scripted birth plan was null and void - I felt wildly out of control and practically begged the hospital staff to let me go home. It was futile. The water had begun leaking that afternoon, drastically shortening the medically accepted "window of opportunity" during which they must deliver Baby Girl.

I tried not to hold my breath, tried not to think of what was to come and tried only to focus on regaining control in any form - which manifested itself in badgering the nurses with 1,472 questions and challenging most of the answers.

It was going to be a very long night.