Just a Little Leak…

This the story of how I became “The Happy Housewife.” You might want to start at the beginning.

Sailor drove me to the hospital and stopped by the ER to let them know he was taking me upstairs and wouldn’t be in for his shift until they checked me out.

We got upstairs and I changed into the hospital gown. I was putting it on when I noticed a large purple and blue spot on my rear end and leg. It was about the size of a pineapple! No wonder it hurt when I fell!

The examined me and thankfully my water didn’t break. Apparently falling down a flight of stairs with a baby sitting on your full bladder may or may not cause a little bit of leaking… 🙂 They sent me home and told me to take it easy until my backside healed.

The rest of the winter passed slowly and I did my best to get the kids out of the house when I could. We would take long walks around the neighborhood to help pass the time. Often my boys would cut through some of the yards much to my dismay. It wasn’t any yard they would cut through, it was the admiral’s yard they would cut through!

It wasn’t too bad, just the corner of the yard, but the yard was so perfect I didn’t want my boys to accidentally trample anything!

When I wasn’t homeschooling the kids or walking them around the base I was busy planning for our next move. The reality of moving overseas with four small children was starting to set in. I was doubting my ability to homeschool two school aged kids, chase after our active toddler, and manage a new baby.

I was so concerned about being able to homeschool that I started doubling up on our lessons so we would be finished with school before the baby arrived in late March. We talked to a few families in Guantanamo Bay and they all raved about the school down there. In fact we had a hard time getting information about homeschooling and it didn’t seem like there were any homeschoolers on the base!

We started thinking about putting the kids in school once we moved to GTMO.

The kids and I became very involved in our church and I ended up on the leadership team for the children’s ministry. It was wonderful to finally be plugged in and feel like we had family away from home. Sailor attended church when he could, but his rotating shifts made it difficult to attend consistently.

One Saturday in March I woke up with a bunch of energy. Sailor had just returned home from a night shift and headed to bed. It was a warm day so I decided to mow the yard and then took the kids on a long walk around the base. After lunch I laid the toddler down for a nap, put a movie on for the big kids, and headed out to a wedding.

I got home just in time for Sailor to head to work for his night shift. I was giving the toddler a bath when I squatted down next to the tub. I was mortified because I thought I had just leaked again. I couldn’t believe that I was going to have “that problem” and hoped it wouldn’t continue after my pregnancy.

I changed my clothes and a while later it happened again. I was dying! I started thinking I was going to need some sort of corrective surgery after the baby was born to keep from peeing my pants every five minutes.

It happened a few more times before I decided it was time to just go to bed. I hoped that if I was laying down the baby wouldn’t be pressing on my bladder and I could at least sleep without any issues.

I laid down to sleep and started to feel funny. I could tell my heart was racing and I was starting to feel sick. I was regretting my day of mowing the yard, long walks and a wedding. I had obviously overdone it!

I called Sailor at work and told him my heart had been racing. He advised me to come in to the hospital just to be safe.

Our good friends came over to watch the kids and I headed to the hospital around 9pm.

I was sent to the L&D ward because I was 38 weeks pregnant and I waited for the doctor. My temperature was elevated and my heart was racing every now and again.

I got up to use the bathroom and when I came back the nurse asked me if I thought my water had broken. I told her no and asked why. She said the bed was a little wet when I got up and she had changed the sheets. I was totally embarrassed to share with her my little leaking issue.

She of course was not embarrassed and told me they were going to run a test to see if perhaps my leaking issue wasn’t really a leaking issue at all.

Sure enough my water had broken. The nurse asked when I thought it happened and I said I thought it was about four hours ago.

Somehow that four hours became four days on my chart and that combined with my fever sent the staff into a hurried rush to get the baby out, asap.

They started pitocin and antibiotics and I became concerned. I told them that I usually deliver babies very quickly and I didn’t think I would be able to get two doses of antibiotics via IV before the baby arrived. They said the antibiotics would be done in a few hours and since I wasn’t having any contractions they thought there would be plenty of time.

Sailor, who was working down in the ER, came up and the nurses told him he wouldn’t be going back to work that evening. We settled in and waiting for labor to begin.

Because Sailor worked in the ER and all his friends were working too I had a visitor about every ten minutes. Almost every nurse on duty that night stopped by to see how we were doing. Some stayed for a few minutes, some stayed the whole night. It was quite a festive atmosphere in my hospital room.

The pitocin was started around 11pm and by 1am they started the second bag of antibiotics. A few minutes later it was time to deliver. The nursed asked for a “test push” and thank goodness the doctor was walking in the door during the test because our little boy was born on the next push.

I was a mom of three boys. 

After our son was born I felt great. Between falling down the stairs and dealing with a rapid heartbeat for three months childbirth seemed like a piece of cake!

We brought him home and settled into our new routine, except we didn’t have a new routine. Because I had doubled up on school my kids had finished all their books. We had nothing to do all day!

I laughed when I did the first load of laundry after I returned home. All my clothes from my water breaking were still in the hamper! I went through four pairs of pants that evening before I finally drove to the hospital!

After a few weeks I started back on my walks, this time with all four kids. The baby and toddler were in the double stroller and the older two kids walked along with me. One day as we were walking I noticed the admiral’s wife and another lady walking behind us. I hurried up, since this was the admiral who’s yard my kids liked to cut through.

It seemed as I walked faster she walked faster. My only goal was to get to the house and get in the front door before she could catch up to me and reprimand my children for walking on her grass.

The only problem was my six and eight year old couldn’t keep up so I had to slow down and finally she caught up to me. I prepared myself to apologize for my kids running on her grass, but before I could get the words out she said,

“I’ve been trying to get a glimpse of your new baby for the past week! Every time I see you walking you are back in your house before I can catch up!”

Boy did I feel like a dummy! I had been running away from this lady for a week and all she wanted to do was ooh and ahh over my newborn! We chatted for several minutes and then finished our walks.

I continued walking by her house until we moved and each time she smiled and waved at my kids, even when they cut through the corner of her yard.

I really enjoyed our life and base and started to wonder if we were making the right decision taking orders overseas.