Just in case you haven't been keeping up with the timeline here let me
reiterate to you...it is now June 7th. I went in to be induced on June
5th.
Yep. Still no baby.
One of the funny parts about
my time in the hospital was how many Labor and Delivery nurses I had.
The shifts would change every twelve hours but every time a nurse's
other patient would be in active, almost ready to push labor, my nurse
would leave and I would get another one. Since I was there so long I
swear I saw almost every nurse possible! Each one would come in and say
something to the effect of, "So you're the one growing the giant baby?"
Every time I heard this I would say, "That's what they say...but mark my
words, he only weighs 9 and a half pounds! I just know it!"
Anyways, Thursday started with Captain as the on-call midwife again. I
got up at 6:15, ate a bit for breakfast, took a shower and then started
back on pitocin. Contractions started up regularly but not intense at
first. My goal for the day was to get to 4 or 5 cm so the cervical
balloon would fall out and clear the way for my water to break or be
broken by the midwife. I had my mom braid my hair back so that I would
feel a bit more pretty and clean which was really nice. It may sound
shallow, but I needed a boost. At 11:20 Captain checked the balloon and
praise the Lord, it was out! This was a HUGE step for us. I was at 5cm
so she went ahead and broke my water. Good grief! She did it without
warning me so I just knew that I was peeing all over her! Once she
explained what happened I felt a lot better. My mom and K were in the
room with me most of the morning which was nice. I got to get up and
move around for a while after Captain broke my water and at 11:45am I
was back on the birthing ball. I alternated between the ball, the cushy
chair in the room and the bed for the next few hours. Contractions were
getting closer together and more intense. This was finally what I had
prepared myself for. K had been doing a lot of guitar playing to help
keep the atmosphere calm but now he was constantly by my side as an
awesome partner and coach. He would rub my back, sit behind me in bed
and talk me through the contractions. During this time we figured out
that my body was responding best to contractions when I was sitting in
bed so I stopped using the birthing ball as much. At 3:00pm Captain
checked me at a stretchy 5cm and LDB was at a -1 station. I was so
excited to have made some good progress! The movement from a -2 to a -1
was especially encouraging. At 4:30 I had another big fluid loss and the
contractions got way harder. I was still working through them well,
though, so I was very glad to not be feeling drawn to an epidural yet.
During all of this my regular midwife came by for a visit. I was so glad
to see her! She was coming from the last meeting of our Centering group
and I was the only mom that wasn't there! I was sad but so glad to hear
from her about how everyone was doing. Her visit was a super refreshing
boost to the afternoon. At 5:45 I was still 5cm but LDB had moved down
to a 0 station. Once again, the fact that he was descending was huge
progress for us. Basically, I was hoping that this meant my body wasn't
deciding that he was too big to move down into my cervix. My sister came
back into town with her family with the hope that I would deliver that
night. I was so, so, so excited that she was back. She and my mom were
still in and out during the evening. The big change for the evening was
when, in between contractions and with a completely clear head, I let K
know that if I checked out again at 5cm I'd like to go ahead and have an
epidural. Knowing that LDB was descending was great but I had been at
5cm for a very long time and I knew that an epidural was our last option
to help my body progress. Sure enough, at 7:45 I was still just 5cm.
That's 9 hours without any progress in my cervix. Captain agreed that my
last option was to try to relax my body with an epidural and hope it
would get my progress going. It was a hard decision but, once again, I
was glad to have exhausted every other possibility before having it
done. At 8:40 the CRNA came by and did the epidural. For the first time
in a long time, I felt warm! I was very pleased with my epidural because
I could still wiggle my toes, feel LDB moving around, and (with great
effort!!!) roll myself over when I needed to change positions. I didn't
feel completely paralyzed, which is what I had been afraid of. The best
word to describe the feeling would be heavy. At 9pm my sister had to
leave but I got to love on her two oldest kids for a bit and they
brought by a present for LDB. Then our parents and K's brothers came
back and visited for a bit. At 10:00 K pulled out the couch bed and we
tried to get some rest. Every hour I would roll over to my other side.
The creepy thing was that I could feel LDB shoving himself into my right
side like he was trying to burrow in and take a nap. I was laying flat on my side and feeling lots of pressure from
him. Contractions were still 2-3 minutes apart and now I had an internal
fetal monitor in so we could get a better idea of how efficient the
contractions were. My mom came back and she and I spent some good, quiet
time chatting while K slept. It was nice time for us and I was thankful
for it. At 1:10am we had a quiet celebration when we found out that I
was at 8cm!! Finally, the progress we had been waiting for. The epidural
had done it's job! My mom and I spent a long time talking and we
decided not to wake K. He had worked so hard and was finally getting
some very deserved rest. The next few hours I was still flipping,
resting and chatting with my mom.
Finally, at 4:00am and 55 hours after the induction started, the most crushing thing happened.
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