Years ago I had another website where I blogged. Then while vacationing in Boston at my cousin's house blogger was introduced to me, and because it was easy and I could blog from anywhere in the world (because I travel so often) I left my old website. Recently I have begun to wonder about the older posts there, and wanting to preserve them I had my husband do his computer magic to find them. I am going to post some of them here time to time just like I did the things from my box of Keepsakes. This first post is quite relevant...
January 15, 2003
The 2nd Pregnancy StoryI awoke this morning and got ready to go to the gym. As I leaned over and picked up my shoes and socks, I walked backward and fell heavily upon my bed. The water in my bed sloshed and moved me side to side. For one moment I feared the worst, and then I remembered that once the worst had happened.
I was pregnant with my second child and about 5 weeks away from my due date. I crawled into bed one night next to my snoring, sleeping husband. I was not able to sleep, and so I propped myself up against my pillow and began to read a book. I read for about an hour, used the bathroom, and went to say goodnight to my daughter. As I was leaning over her bed to kiss her, I brushed my arm against my pajama bottoms. They were wet.
I went into my bathroom and turned on the light. The whole left side of my bottom was wet. My pajamas were soaked. My water had broken. I felt panic rise. It was too early. But wait! Why was the left side of my body wet? Why wasn't I wet between my legs? I rushed to find my What to Expect when Expecting book. It said there would be an odor. I took off my pajamas and sniffed. I smelled chlorinated water. I stopped and thought. This was worse than I expected. I woke my husband.
Me: "I think my water just broke. I was reading and now the left side of my butt is wet, and it smells like chlorinated water instead of how it is supposed to smell, and it is way too early."
Tom: "What?"
Me: "WHAT? Were you not listening? My amniotic fluid doesn't smell right. It smells like chlorinated water. Like a pool..."
I stopped. I leaned over my side of the bed and ran my hand over the sheets. It was dry. I straighten up.
Me: "It was my water. I thought maybe for a minute that the water bed had leaked, but my sheets aren't wet. Should I call my doctor? I'm not having any contractions."
Tom: "It wasn't your water. You probably broke the water bed. Go back to bed."
He rolled over.
Me: "How can the water bed be leaking? The bed isn't even wet."
I snatched my end of the sheets and pulled them back. I ran my hands over the bed.
Tom: "You probably broke it at the seam."
I rubbed the seam of the mattress. It was wet. My water hadn't broken. I had sprung a leak in our water bed. I began to cry. Then I began to laugh. I laughed and laughed and cried and cried.
Me: "I thought my water had broken. Can you believe that?" I rubbed the wet seam again. "How did the bed break? That is annoying."
Tom: "How did it break? It broke because you are always getting in and out of bed." He pulled the covers up over his shoulders. "Just go back to bed."
Me: "How? The bed is leaking!" I snickered.
Tom: "The bed is leaking on your side. My side is fine." He snuggled down further into his pillow and resumed his snoring.
I changed my clothes and bedded down with my daughter for the night, but not before documenting this event in my unborn child's diary. Together we had broken the water bed.
This story is exactly how I remembered except I left out the part about tasting the PJ bottoms. I could not understand how my amniotic fluid smelled like chlorine and so I just put the damn thing in my mouth and sucked it. It tasted like pool water. I think that is when I panicked and woke up Tom.
Other things in this story I do not recall is the bed leaking at the seam. I thought that this was the time we replaced the water bed, but now I'm not so sure. I do know that at some point in time we had to replace our water bed, which Tom did by going to a water bed store and getting one. It was not like the last bed and was so miserable that we had to sleep sideways in the bed for several days while waiting for another bed to be shipped to us.
About two years ago we sprung a leak in this water bed. Again it was me discovering wetness after having just read in bed. Again it was on my side of the bed. Again Tom did not care and went right to sleep. Again I slept with Madison.
The next morning we took off the sheets, unzipped the bed, and discovered that the bed had been leaking slowly from a pinhole leak in the seam. The nasty thing was that the leak had obviously been there for some time because the bed's protective cover was black with mold. My friend happened to be at my house right after this and she was horrified that we had been sleeping in the mold. She is a "green" woman through and through and she ranted and raved about the side effects of mold and told me of horrific things that could happen such as body parts falling off of my face.
I was determined to clean this protective cover as it cost a fortune to replace so I took it to the local do it yourself cleaners. I had the cover in a black plastic garbage bag. When I went into the cleaners there was only one woman in there. Now sometimes there is a worker who washes and folds your laundry for a small fortune or who makes change and such. This woman was sitting in a chair by the door and she began offering up advice to me the moment I walked into the door.
Woman: "Is that a comforter you got there?"
Me: "Sort of."
Woman: "What size is it? Because the size determines the machine. That machine you are looking at is a big machine. What size is that comforter?"
Me: "It's a king."
Woman: "Oh, a king comforter will need a big machine, but that machine costs more than that machine right next to it."
Me: "Well, it isn't a comforter exactly so it isn't quite as big. Maybe...."
Woman: "What do you mean it isn't a comforter? You said it was a king comforter. How can it be a king, but not a comforter? Is it a sheet?"
At this point, I just wanted to yell, "Shut-up lady and let me be!", but of course, I didn't do this and because she seemed so helpful I decided to launch into my tale of the broken water bed seam and the moldy cover. She listened and "oohed" and "aahed" in all the right places and when I finished she pondered what would be my best solution. We both decided that the big machine, which cost $3.50, would be good because the cover wouldn't be so tightly jammed in and the water could flow and blah, blah, blah.
I began getting the machine ready while my new friend kept offering more advice.
Woman: "Now I don't think you should use more than a cup of bleach. More than that it will eat holes in your cover."
Me: "Hmmmmm"
Woman: "And don't put the bleach in first. That goes in on a different cycle."
Me: "Well, this is a special case so I'm going to dump everything in at one time."
Woman: "Well, I think that isn't expected. There is a separate place for detergent and for bleach. A cup is all you need. "
My head was pounding from all of her jabbering. I was planning on dumping in this cover, pouring tons of bleach into the machine and crossing my fingers the mold would wash right out. I was dreading having to sit there and listen to her talk through all the cycles, and I was sure she was going to ignore the fact that I had brought a book. By this time I was annoyed at all the helpful advice from all of these helpful people regarding my moldy king size cover.
The woman was at my side by this time still going on and on about how I should proceed. I bent over, opened the plastic bag and began to pull out my black spotted cover. The woman took one look at the cover, covered her mouth and nose and shrieked, "OH MY GOD! THE MOLD! I CAN'T BE BREATHING THAT STUFF!" And before I could stand back up, she turned in a circle, ran out the door of the cleaners and took off running down the sidewalk. I never saw her again.
I washed the cover the way I wanted with tons of bleach twice. The mold came right out. Tom repaired the tiny hole in the bed, we layered the bed with shower curtains in case of any more leaks, put back on the cover and have slept quite peacefully for the last two years.
Until this past week when after reading I got up out of bed and went into the bathroom to use the toilet. While sitting there I felt some wetness and discovered that the shoulder and sleeve of my pajamas where wet on the right side. Having been there and done that, I immediately felt the water bed and right on my side of the bed was wetness. Tom suggested a towel and went back to sleep as it wasn't on his side of the bed. I spent the night in Darcy's bed in her room next to the dog's crate, where I didn't sleep a wink. The next day Tom found another pin size hole in the seam, but no mold, and he repaired it.
I have decided that I shall not read in bed anymore, I shall agree the next time Tom suggests we change sides of the bed to avoid boredom, I shall learn to jump out of the bed from the middle so I don't sit anywhere near the seam, and I shall wear a bathing suit to bed.
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