Still Cookin'

Friday's agenda:

1) Sign the closing docs for our new house - CHECK!


2) Head to the hospital to begin induction for BG Bowen - CHECK!!!



Saturday's agenda:

Go into labor and have baby....

Revised Saturday agenda:

Receive pitocin beginning at 9:00 am, have contractions all day long, eat 6 popsicles and 7 peanut butter M&M's complimented with ice chips, take multiple naps, sit in rocking chair and read magazines, watch TV, chat with nurses, and finally -

go home as labor is not progressing and BG Bowen is clearly not ready to come out yet.

Oh man. I thought I would be a mom on Mother's Day holding our precious new daughter!!! Yet here I sit having just gone to Sears to buy double ovens for our new home and preparing to potentially go see a movie this evening with my stretched belly still the size of a watermelon.

I can't say that I'm super frustrated or disappointed or upset really. I mean yeah, it was a waste being at the hospital for 24 hours this weekend, but I feel a peace about not having a baby just quite yet. As some of you know, the induction was mostly scheduled due to my extremely irritating PUPPS rash and the potential liver complications resulting from my pregnancy. I found out on Wednesday that my liver is just fine (amen!!), and thought long and hard about not being induced after all as the reason switched from "medically necessary" to more of a "comfort decision." Yes, my rash is still incredibly itchy [and worse today than it was last week after being suffocated by contraction / baby monitoring devices for an extended period of time], but it's still bearable.

After a long conversation with my doctor [who is AMAZING by the way], I went ahead and decided to go forward with the induction. I will say though - I did have some "what if I wait?" feelings in the back of my head, and was mostly concerned with the risk of having to have a C section. Because baby is floating and sunny side up, my chances of having to have a C section are high anyways according to stats from my perinatologist, so I thought - might as well go have baby now!!!

So we went to the hospital on Friday night at 9:00. They checked us in and placed cytotec on my cervix at midnight and again at 4:00 am to help soften / dilate my cervix. At 6:00 am we moved down into labor and delivery. At that point I was having regular contractions (and had been all night - even when I first checked in); however, wasn't dilated at all. They finally started me on pitocin around 9:00 on Saturday morning.

They're supposed to be able to up the dosage of pitocin every 15 minutes; however, because my contractions were so regular they had to hold off to avoid overstimulating my uterus. In fact, I only received half of the normal dosage all day because there wasn't enough down time in between each of my contractions to warrant giving me more meds. My doctor came in and checked at noon - no dilation - ugh, and again at 3:00 - a small change, maybe 1 cm dilated, but nothing to write home about. At that point she gave me 3 options. 1) Continue the pitocin for another 3-4 hours to see what happens, 2) Turn off the pitocin, eat some dinner, and try again tomorrow, or 3) Go home. She mentioned the C section option, but didn't really feel like it was the right thing to do. Had I been dilated 3-4 cm and not progressing or had baby been in distress, that would've been a different story. Baby's heartbeat was perfect and she wasn't stressed out at all. What it pretty much came down to was that my uterus knew what to do [she even called my contractions "beautiful!" and "text book"], but my cervix was clearly not cooperating.

At that point I decided to keep going on the pitocin. The slight change in my cervix at 3:00 was a little encouraging, and I was hopeful that labor might still kick in at any minute. I mean really - how can you have consistent contractions ALL DAY LONG at regular intervals and still not have a baby?? The thing about my contractions though is that they weren't painful. Not hurting at all. Mostly just causing my stomach to be rock hard. Apparently no pain = no gain, as pain would've indicated that my labor was actually progressing.

From 3-6 I will say that my contractions were a lot smaller according to the monitor, but there were a couple that hurt and were noticeably more uncomfortable than the ones I'd had earlier in the day. I felt them in my back, and also felt a slight crampy feeling in my abdomen. I moved to a rocking chair with the hopes that the rocking might help open my pelvis, yet when the doctor came in at 6:30 to check me again, I still was dilated only 1 cm, if that.

So she discharged me. Could she have done a C section, yes. She was on call that weekend and the timing would've worked out perfectly to just get baby out, yet she was still hesitant to even give me that option [did I mention she's amazing???]. So they turned off the pitocin, unhooked my IV, and I was on my way home.

The plan for now is to go back in on Monday for a check-up. My doctor is on call again Wednesday and mentioned giving my body a couple days to relax then inducing again mid next week. I might be on board with that if I go in tomorrow and I'm miraculously dilated 3 cm, but if I'm still hardly dilated with no greater that 50% effacement then what's the point? Clearly BG Bowen is on her own schedule!! I'm right at 39 weeks, so maybe she needs another couple weeks to finish cooking, or maybe the dry run this weekend will be enough to give her the boost she needs to come out on her own sometime within the next couple days. Either way, looks like she's inherited my stubbornness. :-)