From Wiki:
"Pre-labor consists of the early signs before labor starts. It is the body's preparation for real labor.
Prodromal labor has been misnamed as “false labor." Prodromal
labor begins much as traditional labor but does not progress to the birth of the baby."
From the doctor:
"Right now, your baby is sunny side up. She's pointing in the right direction, but you aren't dilated and your water hasn't broken. Also, you're not at 39 weeks "officially", so we can't induce. She's basically playing with the nerves on your spine, which is causing the discomfort."
From my wife:
(Indecipherable whimpering, retching, and breathing)
Have you ever heard someone scream IRL? Not like, "little kid screaming for the sake of screaming" or amusement park screams on the roller coaster. Or even theatrical screaming. I'm talking the good old fashioned can't take it any more variety. I rolled my ankle a few years ago carrying a heavy box down some rickety stairs. Thought it snapped in half. Screamed. Back in 2009 I got a phone call that my dad passed away. Fell to ground. Screamed. Neighbors even stopped over the next day to make sure everything was okay. Those were real screams, but i wasn't listening to myself.
The first time I heard my wife scream like that I guess I wasn't ready for the coppery flood of adrenaline in my mouth and my fists to clench involuntarily as I mentally wanted to find who was attacking her and DEFEND!!!!..Even though I was in a perfectly serviceable hospital with a perfectly respectable doctor who's arm was presently under a blanket checking my wife's nethers as her scream made my eardrums thud.
We were given the above disclaimer regarding pre-labor, and the TL/DR was that nothing could be done except we could try walking around for an hour. The doctor must've seen this before because she said "We just need some water breakage or some dilation. She's ready. The baby is ready. We just need to get past this last step."
Right.
You'd think we could have meandered the whole of Region's in an hour, but the fact was with the retching and the stopping to bend over and breathe...we barely got to the cafe'. (I was starving. It was almost 9 at night and we hadn't even thought of food, as if my wife could have eaten. She tried, bless her, to keep down some pita bread but it didn't stay and it was back up and into one of those barf bags with the plastic ring on top.) At one point, closing in on the end of our hour before it was back to the exam room my wife hobbled...interminably slowly...to the restroom. And after a long enough time the St. Paul Police security doubled back to give me another "why are you loitering outside the ladies room" look, my wife came out just as miserable and said she was glad I packed the change of clothes for her. (Making potty and retching...are not the best combination in the world.)
We made it back to the room for another peek from the doctor which brought another, albeit slightly lessened, scream with the news I was sort of anticipating- still no dilation. It was suggested we labor at home, but it was so late we asked to be admitted where my wife was gowned up and given a blissful shot of morphine in the butt before she got settled in to sleep. In one of the first of many weird coincidences and right before my wife's morphine shot, the nurse helping us out stared the chart a few times before saying my last name out loud about 3 x's.
Me: "Yes?"
Nurse: "That's just not a last name you hear that often. Did you grow up in Brooklyn Park?"
Me: "Yyyyyesss?"
Nurse: "On Colorado?"
Me: "Jesus, we moved when I was five or six. Big white colonial that backed up to the farm field that's a housing development now"
Nurse: "YES! I thought I recognized the name. We were around the 'U' street on Douglas."
Me: "No shit? (Thinks back) So you might've known the _______?"
Nurse: "Yup"
Me: "OH! And the ______?!?!"
Nurse: "THAT was a big time party house!"
Me: "Did you graduate from PC?"
WIFE: "Hello? Can we play catch up later and give me drugs? Pleeeease?"
Crazy.
ANYWAY, the next day there was another cervical check, another (SLIGHTLY lessened) scream, and orders to go home and suffer. Basically. My wife was given a prescription for Extra Strength Tylenol ("It was like being given a band-aid for a compound fracture..." My wife cried while waiting to pick it up, she felt so hopeless.) We went home where my wife was able to get some more sleep but by the end of that day, it was back to the terrible screaming pain. The next day wasn't much better, except my wife had her final scheduled Ob-Gyn appointment which didn't yield anything more except sympathetic expressions from her doctor and the unhelpful "I know it's really uncomfortable, but..." responses.
The message was clear- You're in it. This is part of it. You're going to have to suck it up.
By the end of Wednesday, 4/24/2019...we were getting frayed. We were going back and forth if we should go back. I was missing another day of work at a brand new job. Her parents were both incredibly concerned after her mom came to visit and my wife broke down crying from the pain. I knew she wanted to go back and get help but I knew she'd be sent home to suffer some more. I started get the impression her family was thinking I was keeping my wife from getting help when there was nothing further from the truth. Hopeless and with my support person pregnant and miserable I.. I was just...hopeless.
It was a gray, miserable day. But it was warmer after a terrible Winter. And I needed to clear the fug after all the pain and our fighting.
So I checked on my wife and went for a quick 3 mile trot. After I got home I guzzled some wine and tried rubbing her lower back before telling her I needed to go back to work in the morning and if she said the word, I wouldn't. "I'm on day three of my unpaid maternity leave...and I can't afford to be off any more if it's not go time." It made me feel like an uncaring cad, but we both knew I needed the full 2 weeks to be home with EVERYONE when the everyone in question was finally under the same roof and no co-habiting in my wife's belly.
I showered and passed out, then woke up to moaning and crying and giving more lower back rubs before passing out, then getting woken up again. For good. For real.
"I can't take it any more. Can we please go in?"
You got it, my love. Just let me do the talking when we get there, because if I get another sympathetic look and we get sent home...I'm writing a nasty Yelp review.
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