Waters Breaking

[islandlassie]

Stupid as this question really is.....

What does it feel like when your waters break?

[PavlovtheCat]

Mine felt like I had succumbed to incontinence near the end of my pg! I spent a good hour in bed and out again in the early hours of the morning, thinking I had just developed a very weak bladder before realising my bladder was not full! . A trickle that continued for the rest of the birth.

It is different for everyone I think though - some people get a 'gush'.

[georgiemum]

Oh yes. All of a sudden, a feeling that I had wee-ed myself with absolutely no control over it. Sat on a towel as DH asked 'are you sure you haven't just got incontinence?' Smacked him - hard.

Then contractons kicked in fast and furious as he debated length of time between them before we went to hospital 'I'm sure it's one minute between... let me find my notes from Ante-Natal classes'. Smacked him again and marched out to car with hospital bag.

[islandlassie]

and when people say a 'dribble' or 'trickle' they mean?

[ellideb]

I suppose when its a dribble or a trickle i'm imagining that it's a similar feeling to when you have your period and feel that 'flooding' or 'whooshing' feeling. I'm only guessing though (hopefully I'm not too far off experiencing it myself!)

[lulumama]

when your forewaters go, you usually get a gush and a big flow of water. you can have a small leak, which can be the hindwaters. and that can reseal . if you think your waters have gone or are leaking you must call the labour ward.

mine were broken for me first time, before i had any ctx, and no big gush, but after a while, i realised i was sitting in a big puddle.

second time, they broke spontaneously, when i was 6 - 7cm , and went with an audible and very satisfying bang !! and practically flooded the room.

[poppy34]

for me when went early on was as someone said like period - ie wetness that kept filling hte pad or like you were leaking wee...when hind waters went as lulu said it was like the hoover dam breakign (nearly got consultant witht eh gush..)

the other thing was that waters were more straw colour - I was stupidly expecting wee adn had to phone my friend in a panic to confirm...

[waitingtobloom]

Mine went "pop" - I heard it and felt it lol. It wasnt painful but definitely a sensation of something going pop inside me and I went "oooh!!!". Not sure if they gushed or not as was in the bath at the time (DS was very convenient lol).

[desperatehousewifetoo]

When mine went with ds, they continued to gush everytime I moved to the point that I could not move anywhere without changing underwear and trousers! I was then induced 24 hours after they first went.

Consequently, I had used up all the maternity pads that I had stocked up on even before I had given birth!

With dd, they went during labour and I was oblivious as to what it felt like as too busy pushing

[islandlassie]

So ther is a deffinate colour?

[lulumama]

light straw coloured, perhaps with a pink tinge. it might have bits in it, and you cannot control the flow of it, it smells sweet, not like wee.

if you thikn your waters have gone or are leaking then please call labour ward

[poppy34]

lulu - I wish I'd had that advice before I had a complete flat out panic when my waters broke.
they ended up being meconium stained (dd was fine btw) and I'm sure it is cos she picked up on my stress re had waters broken or not and was it normal... all that after much antenatal reading/clases

[lulumama]

a lot of women have meconium in the waters anyway.. i read an interesting statistic on here the other day, something like 30 % of women will have mec stained liquor at 40 weeks, and that increases post dates. it is not anyones fault ! i had meconium in my waters during labour, and DD fine too.

[islandlassie]

they havent i just want to cut out the false alarms when i simply have a large amount of discharge... lovely i know....

[poppy34]

luluI think that they should make that better known - my hunch was that all was ok but lovely and ultra cautious consultant didn't want to leave it too long.. plus as soon as dd arrived it rapidly became clear she was just a baby who loved to poo

[cmotdibbler]

I stood up and had not quite a gush, but like if you were really drunk, trying to get your house keys in the door, bursting bladder and not quite keeping it all in iykwim - enough to make your leg really wet, but not a puddle on the floor. Everytime I sat on the loo, I had another little gush. When I caught some in a glass, it was straw coloured with little white flakes in it

Then when I went in, they were examining me trying to decide whether my waters had gone or not (was 35 weeks), they really, really went all over this poor little registrar who looked like she should have been in bed, not me in a tidal wave. They decided that they had gone..