I was on the phone with Sean, excited that our first Birth Class was scheduled for 6:30pm. We were deciding on what he should pick up for dinner on the way home and I began to laugh at something he said, but stopped short when I realized there was something wrong. I got off the phone with him and went to the bathroom... and then began to panic.

I knew my water had ruptured but I didn't want to believe it. It was seven weeks early! I thought if I wished hard enough I'd be wrong, that I could continue my pregnancy as I was meant to... That everything would be OK.

I called my doctor and he told me to come to Labor and Delivery. He was confident that it was probably fluid that had been trapped behind the uterus but he wanted to be sure. Luckily I had packed my hospital bag the night before (women's intuition?), so I was ready when Sean pulled into the driveway.

I remember making nervous jokes all the way to the hospital about how I couldn't do anything right, that I was always in such a rush for everything that I couldn't even wait the full nine months for my baby, but I was terrified. I didn't realize that if my water had broken that it was "time". I didn't understand that it meant serious problems, and that I would be in the hospital until I had the baby. There was no going home until, one way or another, the chapter to this part of my life was completed.

I was admitted on sight. I don't remember much of that, except for the frantic calls to family members and to my work. I remember insurance issues as well, but at that point I didn't care. All I knew was that my body was ready to have this baby and I wasn't ready emotionally or physically. I didn't even know what to expect since, at that very moment, I was supposed to be in a class that was going to teach me how to have this baby!

However; the meeting with Dr. Hershberger is forever etched in my brain. The explanation about my baby's lungs not being developed, the concerns with inducing labor or preventing it, the decisions I had to make about what I wanted to do in regards to the life of my unborn child, the fear that I was making the wrong choices, the anger that my body had betrayed not only me but the life it was supposed to be protecting, the agony of not knowing what was going to happen, and hearing the horrible facts about the statistics regarding my baby's life. I remember all of that so well that it amazes me it was four years ago...