Breaking Waters, Breaking Patterns

I thought I felt safe.
Lists checked off.
Everything in its place.
A place for everything.

But it was exhausting—
the unknowing,
the waiting,
the quiet countdown no one gives you a clock for.
Not knowing when labour would hit.
Not knowing how it would feel
or how I would feel.

My friend’s waters had broken in the car at 36 weeks.
I was 33 weeks.
From that moment, inco pads everywhere.
Bed, sofa, car, work.
Changes of clothes in every bag.
I did not want to be caught out.

In the films it’s always a splash.
Dramatic, cinematic, perfectly timed.
But real life is rarely that clean.
Rarely tidy.
Rarely certain.

Sometimes it’s a trickle you only half trust.
Sometimes you just feel off for days.
Sometimes it’s a slow burn,
a question that lingers,
a body humming its own warning:
Soon.

---

Breaking as Invitation

In the end, my waters didn’t break until active labour -8 cm and already deep in the rhythm of contractions.
The home birth midwife was about to leave, thinking I had a long way to go.
I was so calm. Agreed to the check. She remained by my side, witnessing the moment my waters finally broke.

I slipped into the pool.
Warmth surrounding me, holding me.
My body softened, opening in ways I hadn’t imagined.

Pop.
Gush.
Release.

Not chaos.
Not fear.
Just a door opening.
Just surrender.

Every surge, every wave, a reminder: my body knew exactly what to do.
The moment my waters broke in labour wasn’t dramatic, cinematic, or perfect.
It was messy, real, and entirely mine.

Surrender isn’t giving up.
It’s stepping aside.
Trusting your body.
Trusting the rhythm.
Trusting the process of birth — whether at home, in a birth pool, or elsewhere.

The body breaks open
so the truth can come through.
So strength can be remembered.
So the quiet fire can speak.

---

Strength and Surrender

Strength.
My strength.
The strength of women through the ages.
Unspoken.
Why are we not shouting it from the mountaintops?

Why do we whisper what should be carved into stone?
Why hide the fire beneath modesty,
beneath manners,
beneath the myth that smallness equals goodness?

Surrender.
The point of no return.
No going back.
A rhythm building, relentless,
wave after wave.

Out of control,
yet somehow
never more in control
than in that moment.

A stormy sea.
And still—
I am calmly steering the ship.
Hands steady.
Heart steady.
A knowing older than language.

This moment echoes through motherhood.
This trust.
This letting go.
This rising to meet the thing
I once feared.

---

Everything you didn’t plan for

Here’s the thing no one tells you:
your waters are just one tiny part of the story.

Everyone obsesses over them—
Will they break?
When will they break?
Will it be a film-style flood in Tesco?
A midnight trickle through the sheets?
A sudden pop in a birth pool when no one’s looking?

But the real story?
It’s everything underneath.

The pressure.
The waiting.
The trying to hold your life together
while your body keeps whispering:
any day now…

The guessing,
the second-guessing,
the tracking of every twinge,
every shift,
every sensation that could be nothing—
or everything.

That’s the part every mum knows.
That tension.
That on-edge alertness.
That feeling that your whole world
is holding its breath with you.

It isn’t fear, not really.
It’s the weight of transformation approaching.
The body preparing for the moment
it stops asking for permission
and simply does what it was born to do.

---

Beyond the Splash

And so—
a whisper.
Don’t fret about how labour will start.
Don’t lose sleep over the what-ifs,
the timings,
the signals you might miss.

Plan instead to allow your body to sway and move,
to rise and fall with its own ancient rhythm.

Let your mind sink beneath the surface,
quiet as the deep sea,
and let your power take over—
the power that has always been there,
waiting,
steady,
undeniable.

Because in the end,
it’s not about the splash,
the trickle,
the pop,
or the timing.

It’s about the moment you realise
you were never meant to control the sea—
only to trust that you know how to swim.