baby brother's birth story, part one (of 22 hours)

saturday, may 12

"patrick, the shocks on your car are broken or something."
"no they're not, why do you say that?"
"because this is the bumpiest ride ever. i wish we took my car."

we hopped out of the car to discuss our plan of attack for the day with our realtor, phil. 

turns out we were going to venture into some more northern neighborhoods while still staying within chicago lines, putting us in proximity of a few really good schools. 

"ok, we'll meet you at 'beans and bagels' in rockwell crossing then!" we hopped back into our car to head north separately from phil.  

when we were just two blocks away, i wasn't sure if i was spilling my warm tea on myself ... or ... "patrick, it's not an emergency or anything, but my water just broke."

i swear he almost swerved off the road.

***

at that point i generally would have preferred to go home, where piper was being watched by our friend meg, to finish packing my hospital bag and take a shower before heading out to have a baby.  but i was GBS Positive for this pregnancy, and after my water broke we called the doctor who said i really should head right over to the hospital to protect the baby.

GBS Positive = Go to Hospital if Water Breaks
in pregnancy, as the last several weeks approch, the doctor tests for presence of a certain bacteria in the mother.  it's called group b strep (GBS), it comes and goes, and is harmless to the mother. however, it can be passed to the baby during delivery which is quite dangerous. therefore if it's present, the mother needs to take antibiotics while giving birth. i didn't have it with piper, but tested positive this time.  it's easy enough to manage, you just have to let the hospital staff know upon arrival and they'll make sure you get the antibiotics. but because my water broke, the baby was now prematurely exposed. which meant i had to get to the hospital and start on the antibiotics. 

we were pretty far away and it took a good 45 minutes through weird saturday traffic to get over to the hospital.  on the way, i texted meg to see what kind of plans she had for the afternoon. thank goodness she didn't have any and was able to keep watching piper.

after telling patrick it was no big deal, i freaked out the entire drive. i was sweating, i was so nervous! when your water breaks, it releases a hormone into your body that helps induce contractions.  so i was convinced that i was going to start having crazy contractions while we were stuck in traffic.  i know patrick was sweatin' it too.  but we obviously made it. 

i tried to blame patrick's shocks for breaking my water.