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During pregnancy, there definitely can be a variety of leaking kinds of situation, so when you’re at the very end and labor is near you’re probably starting to wonder how to tell if your water broke or you peed! A very valid question.
I wondered this myself, and because I went into spontaneous labor and my water did break at home, I am sharing exactly how to tell if your water broke or you peed, at least in my personal experience.
This post is all about how to tell if your water broke or you peed.
There really is no such thing at TMI once you’re pregnant or a mom, right 😂
Anyways, let’s dive in.
On May 17th I woke up in the middle of the night around 2:30 am to pee like I usually did (pregnancy problems), only this time when I stood up out of bed I felt a very small gush. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but went to the bathroom, peed, and noticed a wet spot in my underwear which wasn’t something I had experienced before.
Now, if you’re pregnant you know lots of fluids tend to leak out. We’re dealing with discharge throughout pregnancy, which only increases typically towards the end. Plenty of women deal with some bladder leakage as well. It’s hard to tell what might be coming out of ya! So at this point, I wasn’t sure.
I hadn’t been dealing with and bladder leakage personally, but definitely had noticed the increase to discharge as I neared the end (yuck.)
I felt in my gut that my water might have broken, but absolutely wasn’t sure at all since this was my first labor and had no idea what to expect.
I laid back down in bed, started googling, and decided to wait a few minutes. After a couple minutes passed I got back up and the same thing happened again, I felt a small gush and there was a new wet spot.
Went to the bathroom, cleaned up, and put a pad on. Laid back down and waited a few minutes, then got up again, and out came another small gush.
When I wiped, it looked unlike anything I had seen previously. It was completely clear and somewhat shiny. I didn’t notice any odor. At this third time I did notice a very very small streak of blood, which wasn’t something I had seen at all before.
I was pretty sure it was my water! I decided to call the on call OB, who wasn’t all that helpful and just told me to come into the hospital and I’d get checked. I was hoping for a bit more information since I had no idea what to look for with my water, but they didn’t really give that to me.
At that point I woke my husband, we finished packing our bags (here’s your reminder to do that sooner rather than later!!)
I was contracting at that point, but I didn’t even fully realize that was what was going on because they felt like period cramps to me and I was expecting a different sensation. But they came and went every 5-10 minutes or so (wasn’t timing them), and they started to intensify as time went on.
While we were packing my husband and I were in shock and I was worried I was imagining all of it and they’d send me home. But at one point I decided to push/clench a bit and a whooollleee lot more gushing happened then. Then I was convinced. At that point I was thinking that if this wasn’t labor I was going to be completely shocked and confused!
We headed to the hospital, contractions kept ramping up, and after they got me all checked out they confirmed both that my water had broken and I was contracting. Yep, labor had started!
Also, I have to throw this in here even though it’s a very annoying answer, but in my gut I knew that it was my water breaking. That wasn’t enough for me to be fully convinced since it was completely new to me, but mother’s intuition is a powerful thing, combined with it all being very different than any previous leakage, I knew.
If you’re nearing the end of your labor, hopefully this gives you a clue into how to tell if your water broke or you peed!
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