"Happy 33rd" - Back Story - Part 5

Is what I said to Emma when I woke up that Thursday morning. I was referring to her 33rd week of being pregnant with our so far unsexed twins. I had being saying that for the last couple of Thursdays almost as a countdown. I got ready for work, kissed her good bye (no breakfast, bad boy) and I made the usual 50 mile, 1hour 30 minutes trip to work.

It was only my 3rd week at my new job so I was just finding my feet. I got in early; my first job of the day was to make a cup of tea for myself. I exchanged pleasantries with a couple of people in the kitchen and then headed back to my desk. I logged into my PC and the fancy telephone software on there had told me I had a missed call. It was home and I had missed it by about 30 seconds. I called back straight away, it was engaged. My mind started to race. I left it a minute and called back.

Emma answered I asked whether she was okay, she said “No, my waters have just broke”, “Oh crap” I thought to myself “I’m on my way” I said out loud to her. She explained to me that she had got through to her mum and dad and they were going to pick her up and take her to the hospital and I should meet them there. It was a good plan and made sense as they were closer to her than me. I told my work colleague what was going on and told him to tell my boss when he got in and then I legged it out of there and got back into my car that I had just gotten out of 15 minutes earlier and headed 40 miles to the hospital.

I had to get fuel for my car as well as some credit for my phone. I called my mum and dad to let them know what was going on. I made it to the hospital before Emma and the in-laws did. They finally arrived; Emma’s dad dropped her and her mum off and headed back to work. We checked in and were escorted to an examining room.

After waiting around for a while (I amused myself by playing with a computer screen that was above the bed, it had a phone and everything, I already said that I was a geek), Emma was examined and it was confirmed that her waters had broke. She was strapped to a machine that read both of the babies heart beats as well as read if she was having contractions. She had a steroid injection in her bum. This was for the babies benefit to try and strengthen their lungs before their impending arrival to give them a fighting chance. Things then were quiet for a while.

Eventually she was taken off the machine and wheeled into a ward with other women and there we stayed for a while. I got some credit for the computer over the bed (most beds had them) and we watched TV on it for a while. Emma’s dad came back from work to join us.

After a while Emma started to complain about being in pain on and off and to me it looked like she was having regular contractions. It took an absolute age for a nurse to take notice as she thought that this was very early on and there was nothing to worry about. The nurse put Emma back on the heart / contraction machine and went off again. At this point she was having fairly regular contractions and I wondered if this was going to go on for a while. You do hear about women who are in labour for days (when was I going to get time to pee?). The nurse returned and after some badgering, she examined Emma. To the nurses shock she was already 8 centimetres dilated. Well that was it we were whisked off to another room to prepare for the main event.