How jackhammering through your house can induce labor.

Our neighborhood has a high water table so a lot of us here have damp basements. The summer we moved in was soooooo rainy and the basement walls were  wet in several places all season.

However the following spring and summer (2012) were very dry and most of the basement was drying out. So we were very perplexed when we saw this huge wet spot on the basement wall:

This wall runs along the side of the main part of the house and borders the part of our house that is on a slab. The rooms on the slab from front to back are the garage, the bathroom/laundry area, and the family room.

We had seen this wet spot before but at the time the whole basement was damp so we didn't think much of it. But in the middle of this early summer drought we were confused. Then suddenly it hit us, above and behind this spot is the powder room/ half bath on the main floor. We called a plummer right away.

The brilliant design of our plumbing system has the main waste pipe for the house running under the the slab floor through the garage bath/laundry and family room to the back of the house.  The plumber accesed the pipe in the garage and scoped it and the whole thing was filled with water.

So here I was 38 weeks pregnant and a plumber is telling me he has to dig up the cement floor through the entire length of my house front to back. Yay.

The pipe had rubber gaskets that had ruptured and so the pipe was zig zagged up and down. Then once they ripped up the floor they discovered HUGE hole in the pipe at the bottom of the toilet. That is exactly what was was causing the leak. Gross. Our basement wall was soaked in poop water.

Thank goodness for home owners insurance because this was NOT a planned expense.  The only good thing that came out of it is that insurance paid for a new floor in the laundry room, garage entryway and powder room, and that it prompted us to re-do the powder room.  Here is the lovely photo documentation:
 The start of the waste pipe comes from the upstairs plumbing and goes through the garage. It broke as soon as they started jack hammering the cement.

What our bathroom looked like after day 1

Our family room after day 1. The waste pipe is lying at the bottom of this trench. To the right is our kitchen.

 The trench from the other side of the room

 Close up of the powder room showing  the pipe that had the hole at the bottom.

 The "bridge" from our entry to the garage.

A very pregnant me pointing out the broken pipe.

If you look at the very bottom middle of the T pipe you can see the giant hole that was spilling yuck into the ground that eventually seeped into our basement wall. bleeeehhhh I still get shivers thinking about it.

                                                          Yay new pipes!!!

 Backfill and cement

 So eventually they fixed the cement and cleaned up. The last bit of cement was finished exactly 12 hours before I went into labor.  The cleaning company we hired arrived at the house just as we were leaving for the hospital.   It took an entire month before we had our carpet cleaned, and reinstalled and all our furniture back in the room. But at least we didn't have any heavy construction happening when Clark came home from the hospital.

So we survived and looking back 6 months later I was astoundingly calm for the situation I was in. I do suspect that Clark arriving 5 days early had something to do with the stress of the whole thing. After all Ev was 2 weeks late!
 But all is well and the home improvement carries on.  Later I'll try to post pics of the now updated bathroom.