After trying all Monday to induce my wife (Carolyn) using pitosin, the nurses gave up. Kaiser labor and delivery wasn’t very crowded, so they let us stay the night. On Tuesday morning about 11:00 AM, the doctor came in and said, “Let’s break her water and see if we can get this labor going.” Normally, they only break the water after the woman is dilated at least 4 cm, but the doctor wanted to speed things up so she broke the water even though Carolyn was only 3 cm dilated.

To break the water, the doctor used a plastic stick that was pointed at the end. She stuck the pointed end into the birth canal and broke the sack. A bit of light brown fluid came out. It looked like watered down coffee. I was actually expecting more liquid, something like a mini waterfall. Since the baby’s head was so low, I believe the head had sealed off the rest of the fluid, so only the fluid that was below the head came out. Carolyn said that more liquid came out later little by little as she started to experience stronger contractions.

Pitosin hadn’t done much for Carolyn, but breaking her water did! She really started to feel the contractions. After about an hour and a half, she was asking the nurses for pain killers. So the nurse brought in another needle and gave her a shot of fentanyl. Almost instantly, Carolyn was feeling better. She relaxed and her contractions started to spread out a little more. In her drugged state she got sweet and romantic. She even gave me kisses.