Having a child is a scary experience no matter what — and at the current moment I’m not sure where my 32 hours spent in L&D fit on the scale of worst case scenerios in giving birth. What I suspect is that on the scale, I’m relatively low down, but I’ve also learned and am trying to come to terms with how this can change at any moment.
Going into L&D when you’re already in labor must be a generally good experience. Going into L&D when your blood pressure is high enough that they can’t medically allow you to go home, and you haven’t actually gone into labor yet, is typically not. Despite it now being my “due date” my body is clearly not ready to have this baby. But for my own health and my child’s health, I have to have baby soon.
They won’t tell me how soon because no one knows. The good news is my blood pressure has remained stable since the scare yesterday when I checked in. I’ve managed to avoid taking the cervix ripening drug and instead opt for a balloon that is quite unpleasant but does the same thing, or at least part of the same thing. They’ve been able to move me on to Pitocin, which is the most commonly-known and used drug for induction. As I’ve learned, Pitocin is given to cause contractions, but you can’t actually have successful contractions until your cervix is a certain amount dialated.
Last night at around eight they moved me into a delivery room to continue my process. The room is much nicer. It has a bed for my husband (where he is currently fast asleep thanks to noise-cancelling headphones) and a private shower, plus a view of the local hills. Since I hadn’t slept more than three hours last night my objective was to sleep quite a bit tonight. My body had other plans. Just as I was starting to fall asleep at about midnight, I wake up to a rush of nurses scurrying about. I learn, as they quickly put a claustrophobia-inducing oxygen mask on my mouth and ask me to turn on my side, that baby’s heart rate has dropped. I do what they say and try to not freak out about the mask on my face. I cry a bit in a quiet panic and hope everything will be ok. I imagine being whisked away for an emergency C-section any minute, all the worst case scenarios flooding through my mind.
Luckily, it doesn’t come to that. Baby’s heartbeat stabilizes. I feel myself shivering and think maybe it’s a panic attack, but as I voice this concern out loud the nurse lets me know that she put a new liquid of some sort in my
IV to help baby and turned off the pitocin for a bit. I feel better knowing that I wasn’t shivering for no reason, but quickly became nervous about how long the feeling would last. She promised me the new fluid would be administered in a few minutes. I tried to breathe through it. Breathe through this part of labor that isn’t even the hard part of labor -because I’m not even in active labor yet. I’m just obliging nurses and doctors effectively playing god, as they do on a day-to-day basis, trying to get there.
The nurse has me turn to my side to sleep this way and lets us know that we’re not sure why the baby’s heart rate fell, but it could be related to the position I was sleeping and I’d need to not lay on my back. I found a semi comfortable position on my side only to, minutes later, desperately need to use the rest room but find myself unable to reach for the nurse call button and staring at my fast-asleep husband with his noise-cancelling headphones, contemplating throwing a pillow at him for help.
Luckily the nurse noticed something about my motion on her monitors in the hall and came in. I’ve was terrified to move and felt so helpless. As soon as I stood up everything started to come together a little more. I realized I had been so scared about raising my blood pressure levels for the last 32 hours that I really haven’t gotten up at all from the bed other than to go to the bathroom. This is the exact opposite of my plan — if laboring at home and not induced — to walk a lot in early labor. Instead, I had unintentionally bedridden myself for most of my hospital stay.
Screw sleeping. I decided to go for a walk.
The nurse helped me gather my bulky IV pole and head to the hallway, where I walked up and down for a good 15 minutes. Even though I couldn’t go far, it felt amazing. And guess what? With a lower dosage of pitocin and my walking, contractions started. I didn’t feel them at first, but the nurse promised she was seeing them on her monitor. Then, I returned to the room to write this post, to distract myself and sit upright for a while, and could see baby’s heart rate going up at the exact moments my abdomen began to squeeze tightly.
My contractions are still irregular, but definitely — and very quickly — gaining regularilty. They’re coming about every 2–5 minutes. Luckily, they aren’t painful yet, just — interesting. Like someone is blowing up a giant ball in my stomach and then deflating it as a joke. No pain yet. I’m sure this will change soon. I have about an hour-and-a-half before the doctor comes in to remove my balloon, at which time I’ll find out exactly how far along I am. It can still be many hours, or, who knows, this can all go quite fast. No one knows.
I realize I should probably be sleeping right now. I will regret not sleeping later. But sitting up and walking around feels right. I may try to sleep an hour or so before the doctor comes, but I’m not sure how much the hour will help at this point. I’m going to be a horrible mess when it comes to the active labor portion of this marathon. I’m very scared, but also feel less scared of this part because this is the part that is supposed to happen. As long as baby’s heart rate stays up and my blood pressure stays down, we should get through this ok, even if it is the most painful thing I’ll ever experience in my life and then some.
Speaking of pain, at some point I’ll have to decide on whether or not to have an epidural. Prior to this whole ordeal I pretty much decided that I’d have the epi if I felt I needed one, and pretty much definitely if I had to be induced. So, the answer is still pretty much definitely. But, given the issue w/ baby’s heart rate earlier, I just don’t want to do anything that will jeopardize that. Maybe the pain is worth it to be able to feel everything and get baby out safely and as fast as possible. Or, maybe I’m being delusional and I need to ask for the epi as soon as I feel pain… which is probably going to be very soon, or, when my waters break, whenever that happens. And, I really should sleep before it does.
Signing off for now. I probably won’t be able to document the rest of this process in the same fashion given the pain will takeover and I won’t be able to think straight. I’m still mourning the loss of going into labor naturally but at least now we have progress in the right direction. Each contraction the “ball” inside me feels like it inflates just a bit more and stays open a bit longer. I wonder how long it will take to go from where I am to pushing my child out of me, and worry there will be more unexpected scares down the road. As I worry, I resolve myself to a little more sleep — or at least attempting a little more of it.
life with interest 