No more shrimp scampi

***Warning!  Graphic description of bodily functions ahead!***

We had shrimp scampi for dinner.  Shrimp and pasta swimming in garlicky butter.  Yum. 

But sometimes that much butter does a number on me.  Same if I eat too much ice cream.  I often feel tremendous gas or cramps about an hour after eating something so buttered or dairied.

So around 10pm, when I started feeling pressure throughout my torso, that's what I thought it was.  And I joked with K that oh boy, we are not having shrimp scampi again any time soon.  For about an hour, I kind of fidgeted and twisted in my seat hoping an embarrassing fart would announce itself and the pressure would be relieved. 

Around 11pm, I decided that maybe a bowel movement would either relieve the pressure or the attempt at having a bowel movement would finally release the longed for fart.  So I started to push a little bit and realized that whatever was trying to leave my body was coming out the front and not the back.  So I immediately stopped.

I tried to remain as calm as possible while telling K what I think I just experienced.  "It's probably nothing or my imagination, but it kind of felt like instead of a stool coming out that back, something was coming out the front.  I think we should call the doctor."  I did my best to be honest about what I just thought had happened while being blase enough about it to prevent panic from washing over K.  And he did his best not to register panic while I called the doctor.  Or he called the doctor.  The details are fuzzy. 

I do remember him trying to report what I had told him and me telling him that's just the answering service, they can only take a message and have the doctor call me back.  They can't help.  And about 10 minutes later, the on call doctor called me back.  Again, the details of the conversation are fuzzy.  She was kind of saying I might want to come in, but she wasn't being very direct about telling me to do so.  She said something about the walls of the vagina pushing out and that's somewhat normal so that might be what it is. 

At some point we realized that the pressure would wind up and then wind back down.  During the first hour, it was every 20 minutes or so but was starting to become every 10.  As that started to sink in, we started to understand that oh shit, that's what labor is.

As the conversation was winding down, I remember saying "I have to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW" and giving the phone to K while I went back to the toilet.

And again, when I pushed, it was coming out the wrong place.  I felt with my fingers and felt what seemed like a very full water balloon coming out of my vagina.  If it was the walls of the vagina bulging, it would have been more like a closed donut with a center to it.  But this was very definitely a round ball and not a bulging tube.   I feared that I was putting my finger on the top of my babies head.  And I realized the very real possibility that I was about to push my children into the toilet.

I reported those details to K who reported them to the doctor and she was still trying to keep us from panicking but K was already putting his shoes on because we knew we were headed to the emergency room.