I dropped my oldest daughter off at Great-while Grandma’s I worked, then I went to work as usual the day my second daughter was born.
Although I wasn’t due until the next day, Braxton Hicks contractions started that morning. They would arrive and leave. The contractions stopped after I had lunch with some friends. At 1:30 p.m. Every five minutes, I started to experience regular contractions. They didn’t hurt at all. At 2:00 PM, I dialed the doctor’s office. I was instructed to visit the office. The doctor’s office is about 20 minutes away from where I work at the hospital where I had intended to give birth.
I had to wait for the nurse practitioner after I arrived at the office. Because my contractions were coming one after the other at that moment, the woman who drove me back home startled the nurse practitioner. I was checked by the nurse practitioner when she arrived, and I was prepared to push! My water had not yet broken.
To get an ambulance to transport me back to the hospital, they dialed 911. A paramedic unit and a basic unit were sent by the dispatcher. My hubby is currently traveling to the doctor’s office. He went directly by the ambulances. When he arrived at the office, the receptionist informed him that the ambulance had just picked me up. Moreover, when I was returning to the hospital, my water broke as my daughter was crowning.
I was in the back with three paramedics, and none of them had ever delivered a child! It’s a good thing I learned that after they delivered her. When the EMT opened the ambulance’s back door, an ER doctor who was waiting in the bay with two L&D nurses at the hospital hopped inside only to discover that the baby had already arrived. Five minutes after I arrived, my husband walked into the emergency room to inquire about a pregnant woman in an ambulance. Nobody understood what he was saying until someone I knew overheard him and told him that an ambulance did not arrive with only one pregnant woman because it actually contained both my daughter and I.
My labor lasted an hour and a half in total. I’m so glad my subsequent two pregnancies were induced. I don’t want to experience that once more!
Brenda M., a Racine, Wisconsin, resident
