so many things have happened in the last 24 hours that are worthy of documentation, but i’m going to start with the basics. it’s about all i’ll have time for before charlotte comes by for her 12:15 feeding. after that, it is nap time for me :)

there are two kinds of induction stories. the first kind, as previously mentioned is the “omg did it ever suck and then i had to get a c-section anyway” kind. the second, of which i knew only one actual incident (detailed by deborah in the comments), is the “i blinked and i had a baby” kind.

allow me to add another :)

we arrived at the hospital around 10pm. after checking in, getting setup in the room, getting an IV and all that swell stuff, it was determined that i was *still* 3cm and 80%. they started me on a low dose of pitocin with plans to progress after 4am. we spent about 4 hours not-quite sleeping. i think i maybe got 10 minutes of actual unconsciousness out of the whole thing, but was lulled into a semi-sedated state by the rhythm of charlotte’s heartbeat on the baby monitor…when she stayed still enough for it to pick it up anyway.

around 4:15, my water was artificially broken and the pitocin was kicked up a notch. contractions (which had been relatively non-existent for the last 4), began in earnest. i understood what “not being able to talk through them” meant. i can’t imagine waiting for that stage before even going to the hospital. an hour later, the pain had sufficiently eclipsed my apprehension about an epidural.

by 5:45, i was all set up. epidurals are one of the greatest inventions ever. yes, the concept is freaky, and the installation was unnerving (missing story goes here), but once it’s in? wowsers. it’s like sitting in a jacuzzi, only without the water. my legs were warm and heavy and slightly tingly and i felt wonderful.

after a brief visit by the grandparents around 6:15ish, i was checked again. 4cm and 95% effaced. progress! we were told that they’d check up on us every so often (2ish hours) to see how we were doing. in the mean time, if i felt any pressure with the contractions, or desire to push, i should let them know.

at 7am we took a nap.

at 8 i woke up because i was feeling pressure.

at 8:15 it was determined that not only had i slept the rest of active labor (the 4-7cm growth phase), but all of transition (the awful, worst part of the whole process jump from 7-10cm). charlotte’s head was already making it’s way down the chute. after discussing the options (start pushing now, or see how much longer i can hold out), we decided to wait until the pressure/pushing urge became a bit stronger. since we were both doing fine, it would lessen the amount of time we spent in active pushing.

calls were made, waiting parents were informed that the baby would likely be coming in the next hour or so.

at 8:40ish, my doctor showed up to start her morning rounds. she assessed the situation and said “you’re having this baby now. i’m not even going to check on my other charges.”

at 8:50 we started the process up with a couple of practice pushes (there’s a breathing/pushing rhythm to each contraction). fortunately, my epidural was the perfect strength to feel the contraction coming, plus the pressure, but without any pain. it helped us time the pushing better than we would have otherwise.

she crowned on the first practice.

she crowned a bit more on the second, while the doctor was finishing setting everything up.

then we pushed for real.

then again.

about 1/3 of the way through the first push of the 3rd set charlotte’s head popped out. the rest of her would have as well, had the doctor not caught her and yelled “stop!” at me.

moments later, at 9:12am, she was born.

i’m still in shock over how fast and smooth the entire thing went.

there’s lots more to share about today…well, yesterday, but i’m fading insanely fast at this point and i need save my strength for the feeding that’s about to occur.

9:30> woke up. got some food (toast and juice and a dr. pepper)
10:28> slammed the rest of my dr. pepper so that i could be finished eating/drinking by 10:30.
11:00> took a shower.
12:00> stared at the phone for a while. played some games. checked some internet.
2:00> painted my fingernails
3:00> napped. mostly just sort of thought thoughts for a while.
5:00> woke up
5:15> called per instructed when nobody called me by 5. was told i was next in line and that it should probably be another couple of hours. learned i could have cranberry juice.
5:16 > watched crappy tv. more internet. more games. started drooling over taco bell nacho bellgrande with chili, popeye’s chicken (although it was a kfc commercial), almost everything they showed on tv. started getting my usual evening contractions.
7:00 > america’s next top model
7:49 > got a call. still next on the list. still going to be a couple of hours. apparently nobody who was supposed to have their babies this morning felt like it.
8:00 > gossip girl because private practice was pre-empted by country music awards.

now > distracting myself with this blog entry. finding cranberry juice filling, but less satisfying by the hour.

next > …no clue. hoping to get a call by 11pm. may lay down again. at least all this waiting is pushing frustrated to the top of the emotional list, diminishing my anxiety down to near-nil.

so today, random scheduling conflicts at the hospital notwithstanding, we’re going to have a baby. she probably will not be born until sometime thursday morning, but the show will get started today.

i’m pretty scared.

i know inductions happen “all the time” and that most of the books i’ve read have at least a slight bias against them, especially when they’re elective, so i’m trying very hard to take all the perils they describe with a grain of salt. i just wish i had more stories of good inductions. so many of them (okay, maybe 3 of 4?) go along the lines of “omg, it hurt so bad and then i had to have a c-section anyway”. i’m worried about the stress my body’s going to go through. i’m worried about the stress charlotte is going to go through even more.

i don’t know how much of this is really related to induction, though. i’m sure at least some of it is simply labor-related anxiety. i do not handle unknowns well at all, even good ones or “no big deal” ones. monday’s visit to the hospital was uneventful, it at least killed one of the primary things that was concerning me. i’ve been to the hospital many times to visit folks. i walked my husband through the doors when he had to have his gallbladder removed, but i’ve never been a patient myself. as silly as that sounds, not having any experience checking in, having to put on a gown, and being the person in the bed was sort of freaking me out. at least now that’s behind me.

so, my plan for today is to finish up my breakfast/only meal of the day, which consists of 2 slices of cinnamon raisin toast, a hearty glass of cranberry juice and a can of dr. pepper. from 10:30 on out, it’s clear non-caffeinated bevvys for me, which pretty much means water.

at 11, i’ll take a shower. who knows when i’ll get another one, so i’d like to maximize how clean i feel as long as possible.

at 12, we’ll just wait for the phone to ring. there’s tv, the internet, and if we’re feeling very ambitious, dishes in the dishwasher that can be put away.

according to the most recent set of instructions, if nobody calls me by 5pm, i need to call them.

and that’s about all i can control at this point, which will have to be enough.

3:00 am: i call the doctor because i’m having contractions 6-10 minutes apart. they aren’t *bad*, but they’re close together. she tells me to head in.

3:20 - we head in.

4:00 - we check in. it’s determined that my pre-registration didn’t take, so i re-register. i get gowned up, inspected, etc. we watch charlotte’s heartbeat and my contractions on the monitor for a while. charlotte is fine. it’s determined that i have not budged (still 3cm/80%)

5:00 - 6:00 - we walk the halls of the L&D, NICU, WeU (Women’s evaluation unit), and try to shake some progress out. contractions get steadily worse and regular.

6:00 - i still have not budged. they discuss sending me home, but the uptake in contractions means we wait to see if there’s been progress.

6:30ish - still no progress. charlotte is still fine. they talk about discharging me.

7:15ish - the discharge nurse comes in. gives me a pep talk. points out that i’m just not budging and i could stay there and be miserable for 7+ hours while i wait, or i could go home and nap and eat and such. am given a list of distinct signs to look for (not being able to talk, broken water, really-real bloody show) to come back. contractions are now more painful than any menstrual cramping i’ve ever had and are anywhere from 3-6 minutes apart. am told to ignore that.

7:30ish - when i get up post-peptalk to change back into my clothes, i discover i’m bleeding. and not post-exam like. bloody-show like. discharge nurse comes back in. frowns at the blood, checks me out again. i still have not budged. i’m still going to go home.

7:45ish - leave the hospital knowing i don’t get to come back until i can’t talk through a contraction or my water breaks, no matter what else happens in the mean time. am pretty confident that i’m going to end up giving birth on the living room floor. hope that amniotic fluid makes a good floor polish. as predicted, really horrible awful contractions start to taper off a bit. instead of engaging in conversation through the contractions, i “prove” i can still talk by reciting warmup exercises from theatre. “What a to-do” gets me mostly through each contraction if i take it slow. consider switching to sonnet 116.

8:30ish - arrive home via morning rush-hour traffic. sleep. it is difficult at first, but then comes easier. get up every couple of hours to pee, drink water, feel these fun contractions. faux-show tapers off to normal post-inspection style. have lots of dreams where i’m carrying heavy things and assume they’re coinciding with contractions.

now - heading to lion’s choice for “breakfast.” still contracting fairly regularly, but it doesn’t even interrupt typing, much less walking or talking. :)

So….

the last … 3 contractions have been less than 10 minutes apart and all not-weak. still not something i can’t walk/talk through, but strongest yet, certainly. long enough that i can feel them start, peak, and back off, which is pretty new, too. before that we had a run of 15ish minute deals, with varying intensities.

i think this might be the start of “it” :)

i have one concern right now: charlotte. (i mean, duh, but a specific charlotte-related concern) she seems a little freaked out. not in a frantic “call the doctor if the baby is in distress” sort of way (which, btw, is complete bullshit. how do you know that?!). she’s just sort of squirmy. even if i’m totally projecting, it bothers me that i can’t tell her it’s going to be okay. that i know she’s freaked about what’s going on, but it’s supposed to happen and that it will all be over very soon, and that it has to happen and that it’s for the best.

anyway, this is my version of nervous chatter that i can’t really do right now because ryan’s in the shower (i just got out), and i’m probably just past the point of being able to nervous chatter anyway. only my fingers are capable at this point.

back to the game!

so…what’d you do today?

know what i did? i sat on the couch, almost entirely engrossed in a video game next to my husband who was doing the exact same thing. occasionally we’d get up to eat or do laundry or something. sounds like an idyllic sunday, right? (okay, maybe video games aren’t your thing, but you’ve got a thing you’d love doing all day on a sunday instead of being productive)

it was not.

through out the day, every 30 minutes or so, but with a few hour long breaks, i’d have a contraction. sometimes they were weak, sometimes they were not-so-weak. sometimes they’d be 20 minutes apart for a while, sometimes almost 40. they were never bad enough that i had to stop talking or anything. none that were as bad as one i had a few days ago, but for the last … 2 hours or so they’ve been consistently … not-so-weak.

we even had a two hour period where nothing was happening, and then we realized that nothing was happening. not even a peep from charlotte herself. after calming down and waiting patiently/rationally for some sign, she eventually woke up (i’m sure she was tired, too), and moved around enough to calm me down. i’m still not sure ryan’s calm about it.

waiting like this it is the dumbest thing. we’ve had days where there’s been 2-3 hours or so of this. we’ve had nights where we’ve given up and gone to bed in hopes that i wake up screaming in pain or with a ruined set of sheets (don’t worry, the mattress is protected). we’ve not had an entire day where we’ve been teased this mercilessly.

today is the official “due date” and it’s 10:30pm. there had better not be a baby born today, but i sure would like to be going to the hospital before the day’s officially over. neither one of us is interested in going to bed until this either dies down for a few hours, or it’s obvious we’re going to go someplace. i can’t imagine waking up tomorrow and sending ryan to work, if tomorrow’s going to be anything like today was, and i suspect it will.

well, the first due date has come and is 3 hours away from going, so i think it’s safe to call it.

that’s right. the 36 week ultrasound had predicted 11/1 as the due date. not sure what the margin of error “officially” is, but even the technician waved off the information when she gave it to us.

that leaves:

11/4: the doctor’s official due date based on my last period. i had thought it was 11/3 until i saw some official records last week.

11/6: my due date, which takes into account that i ovulate on the 16th day of my cycle, not the 14th (which is what the 11/4 date assumes).

and then, of course there’s 11/7: the “if nothing else” induction due date (hospital backups notwithstanding), which likely means an 11/8 birth date.

knowing that the end is officially near helped me a bit today. i was able to sleep better last night, and was less mopey today. i still wasn’t productive by any means, but i didn’t mind all the down time as much. which is good. at most, i have 5.5 days of this left.

that’s pretty awesome.

sigh.

i was really hoping to not have this week’s checkup. and then i was really hoping that if i went to this week’s checkup, my doctor would tell me that i’ve progressed so much that labor was just around the corner. or maybe, just maybe, she’d look at me cross-eyed and say “shit, girl! you’re in labor! get yourself to the hospital.”

none of those things happened.

there was no change in my shape (still almost 3cm, still 80% effaced) when the examination started. by the time it was over…um…let’s just say (and i’m practically quoting) she did all she she could to hurry things along short of grabbing my tonsils. hopefully it’ll jump-start labor in the next few days.

even better news: we also scheduled an induction appointment for next week on the 7th. i’m in the afternoon shift, which means any time after 3pm someone is going to call and say “come have a baby, okay?” and then we’ll hop in the car and then go have a baby. according to my doctor, it’s likely the call won’t come until 7 or 8pm (they have to “clear out” all the morning folks first), and charlotte won’t be born until the next morning.

i don’t know about you, but i feel better. my doctor gave me a boost to kick labor into gear, and gave me an end date. i’m not exactly looking forward to induction, but i’m certainly looking forward to not being pregnant, and even more so, i like end dates. the past few days have been really rough, and i’m not even *at* my due date yet. the frustration of not knowing has been really difficult. one of the reasons i’m sleeping late and taking naps is that i can’t sleep at night. the anxiety of wondering what tomorrow will bring keeps me up until tomorrow happens (well, until about 6am) and then i can sleep.

hopefully i’ll sleep better tonight :)

oh! and as a side-note there were 3 of us all due about the same day: my cousin, a former co-worker, and me. well, my co-worker had her baby this morning after a freakishly short and easy labor process (10pm to 2am!) so congrats to cindy and MP! (and skyler)

when my father was dying/died earlier this year, my mother was obsessed with signs. a bird outside the window, a strange phone call, a mis-behaving tivo. you name it, it was a sign. or at least, she wanted me to tell her if i thought it was a sign or not. repeatedly (and gently) i told her that anything can be a sign of anything and if they made her feel better it was a good thing and not to worry to much.

i am experiencing my own “sign” frenzy. every time something happens that’s a “sign” of impending labor i start to get excited, or at least anxious for it to confirm itself as a *true* sign of pregnancy.

examples? on friday i had some spotting. while rational-me kept reminding the rest of me that spotting after a checkup is normal, irrational-wanna-baby-now-me kept reminding the rest of me that i’d never spotted after a checkup before and maybe it was a bit pinker than brown even if it was very thin, so it could still be the bloody show (great name, huh) and one of those “within 48 hours” signs i’ve been waiting for.

but it wasn’t.

on sunday, my digestive track decided it was done dealing with my food for a while. often, within about 4 to 48 hours before labor begins, a woman can get nauseous and/or have diarrhea as her body begins to prioritize labor over food. rational-me pointed out that after the choices i’d made over the past few days (diner food, heavy cream pasta sauces, etc), it was really not surprising that i might have some … discomfort followed by some diarrhea. irrational-wanna-baby-now-me quickly countered with how different my bowels were behaving even though my diet hadn’t *really* changed all that much. when a normal, sensible meal offered the same speedy result as the greasy stuff, iwbn-me almost managed to get the rest of me on board. had it not been for the complete and utter lack of really-real impending labor signs (no show, not even some faux-contractions) i think i might have gone completely crazy. or, you know, into actual labor. today everything is back to “normal,” however, so i can’t even cling to the end date of that “sign”.

and the thing is, short of actual labor things that will cause me to directly go to the hospital or at least call someone, there’s nothing left to happen that’s going to impress. the best “here it comes!” set-up has a “within 4 hours to a few days” timeframe, and guess what? i’m 3 days out from the due date my last ultrasound pegged me at, 5 days from my dr’s due date, and 7 from what i would consider the *real* due date, once my ovulation cycle is factored into the math. i fully expect my doctor to schedule an induction appointment at my next checkup (wednesday) for the week after my due date.

so yeah, it’s probably going to be within 4 hours to a few days from now, signs or no signs.

yesterday i told a friend that i preferred signless days to sign-full days because then at least i wasn’t driving myself crazy hoping against rationality. turns out it really doesn’t matter anymore. sign-less days (like today) are their own kind of “where the hell did my signs go?” crazy-making.

to top off all the sign-crazy, i’m getting a bit irrational. (yeah, i know, “getting”) it seems like my breasts are shrinking for some reason. if i lie (lay?) in certain positions in bed, it sort of feels like i don’t have a belly anymore. i have this weird moments when i’m waking up where i really feel like instead of giving birth, i’m just going to slowly become un-pregnant over the next 9 months. like we missed some sort of window and my body’s just going to shut down the show. it takes me a considerable moment for biology to convince me otherwise.

i’ve got to hand it to charlotte, though. throughout all of this crazy, she’s stayed active without being frantic. it’s a constant, stabilizing reminder that while things may be unpredictable and worrisome out here, inside she’s perfectly fine. and really, signs and craziness and irrationality and impatience aside, that’s what’s most important to all of us.

we interrupt this checkup post to whine about not sleeping.

guh. for some reason i had a hard time getting any decent sleep last night from 11pm to about 3am. you know how sometimes you don’t really “fall” asleep? you sort of have this stream of conscious thought that takes about 10 minutes and you realize about 40 has passed but you don’t ever feel like you slept? that’s what it was like.

then charlotte and my belly decided to have another practice run. this time the faux-contractions were juuuuust potent enough that i woke up with them …every 20 minutes or so. that lasted until about 6.

i slept fairly well from 6 - 8 and was looking forward to another 11am wakeup call to catch up on what i was missing.

however, someone either moved in upstairs, or the construction crews decided to load a bunch of finishing options equipment into the space. hooray for someone buying a unit and hooray for neighbors, but i couldn’t sleep though it. i was up by 9 and cranky.

by the time i hit the “it’s time to sleep now” stage again, it was sadly too close to go time for the checkup to really do anything about it.

i’m sleepy.

so, that checkup. everything is “fine” in that we’re both still perfectly healthy and doing great. which, yay, of course, but still. i’m still pregnant. i’ve apparently gone from “just under 3cm” to “a tight 3cm” with no change in effacement. bummer. so now we wait until next week’s appointment or hopefully, labor starts for real :)

oh, and it seems that my cervix is crooked, too. it leans a little to the left ;)