I spent the better part of my online time during the last few weeks of pregnancy reading other people's birth stories. I had written an account of Samuel's birth, more as a healing exercise than to share, and hadn't ever posted it because once I read through it I realized how depressing and painful it sounded. But with Clara's birth behind me now, I think that this is a birth story I will share; it is a miracle in and of itself.
Thursday May 10th was our induction day and the day Clara was at 42 weeks gestation. The night before I had had some signs of impending labour that I hadn't had before, and although I didn't think, knowing how the pregnancy had gone up until then, that they spelled 'baby tonight', they reassured me that things were at least progressing internally, and that Clara was 'fully baked' and as ready to come out as she was going to get.
We went into the hospital for our 7:30am induction uncertain about how the day was going to proceed. When I arrived, I was told that I was only booked for part one of the induction, which in my case was a Foley catheter induction, and that they had expected that I would then go home for the night and return the next day for part two! Of course, we hadn't heard this at all - and the crossed wires left me very anxious - especially when I was checked and discovered to be 3cm dilated - which ruled out a Foley induction and left us with breaking my water.
The problems were clear, here. Hospital policy said that once my waters were artificially ruptured I would have to have continuous fetal monitoring. The OB on call said that wouldn't be necessary in her opinion: she was fine with monitoring me every two hours for 20 min., unless an AROM resulted in meconium in my water, in which case I would have to have the continuous monitoring. To add to the excitement, the 'telemetry monitors' that allowed you to move around and not be strapped to the bed only worked 'some of the time', according to our nurse. Finally, the OB told me that she would give me 24 hours with ruptured membranes and then want to discuss other methods of induction.
My choice, then, was to go home and come back the next day to have an induction by Pitocin, or to stay, have my membranes ruptured, hoping that the fluid was clear, or that the telemetry machines worked, and that labour started before 24 hours had passed and that they could arrange a room for me.
We decided to go with rupturing my membranes, staying with our original plan of a drug-free induction. I had had a feeling in the final week of my pregnancy that my amniotic fluid was the culprit in this baby being overdue. I had been told that the baby wasn't engaged and hadn't dropped, and during my fetal assessment the ultrasound technician commented that I had lots and lots of fluid - I couldn't help but wonder if everything was just really cushiony in there.
My theory was verified when they tried to rupture the membranes because not only did they need several tries, but when they finally did manage to break them the amount of water surpassed my expectations considerably. Almost immediately, I felt our little girl low and painful - and David and I, hopeful that this was the beginning of the end, started walking the halls.
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