Birth Story part 1

It has been a crazy whirlwind of events these past 4 days!

Friday was my last day of work before I started maternity leave but that morning I had a series of pregnancy tests to attend. The result was that I was added to the induction list due mainly in part to the feared size of baby and the fact that I have been an insulin dependent gestational diabetic. No big concern though because my due date isn’t officially until Christmas day so I definitely wasn’t a priority on the list.

The very next morning, at 9am, I got a call from my midwife that “our turn” had arrived and we were to go in that morning for induction.

Ahhhhhhhhh!

Yup, I felt a little flustered and un-prepared but we got our bag together, dropped Bambino off at gramma’s and headed to the hospital. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot to be honest. After all, they had to induce me 3 times before Bambino arrived though my midwife did tell me that things would probably move faster with the 2nd baby so my fingers were crossed that all would go well.

Once we got to the floor we were greeted by a quarantine sign and had to immediately sanitize our hands and were handed literature on Strep A. You can read all about the outbreak here. Of course, this did NOT put me at ease but as this is the only place for inductions and babies being born if you aren’t having a home birth I went on in.

Here I am waiting patiently for the process to being.

And this is the very odd picture they had in the pre-delivery room.

I was hooked up to the fetal monitor, my blood pressure checked, and the induction medicine inserted. After about an hour I went home and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But besides some cramping and very mild irregular contractions, nothing happened.

So the next morning, at 11am, we went back into the hospital for a second induction.

Here I am getting ready to leave for the hospital...again.

This time they put me in a room with another lady who was in labour. She was moaning and crying and sounded like she was in so much pain. At one point the lady told the nurse that she didn’t think she could do it and the nurse said “well that’s what an epidural is for” and she had the epidural administered. She was left alone with her husband for a long period of time to deal with the contractions on her own but at one point, in the midst of a particularly hard and long contraction, my brilliant midwife went over, held her hand, and talked her through it.

I love my midwife :)

However, being in the bed next to her, I started to get scared of my own labour and what was to come and I started to cry myself. It had put me into a panic and I was having a hard time calming down. I did not have an epidural my first pregnancy and have not planned to have one this time but I immediately told my midwife that I didn’t think I’d be able to do this again and would need the drugs. She beautifully told me that we would take this pregnancy one step at a time and reminded me how well I had done the first time.

Again, I love my midwife :)

The fetal monitor was showing contractions, even though I wasn’t feeling them, and because the ward was already very busy, my midwife was able to talk to the OB and NOT induce me as planned. Instead, I would go home, see if things progressed on their own and, if not, go in the next day for induction.

I was so happy and so relieved!

We left the hospital, picked up Bambino from gramma’s, went for lunch and came home just to relax as a family of 3 for one of the final times before becoming a family of 4.

My midwife gave me the recipe for a labour cocktail (apricot juice, almond butter, castor oil, verbenae oil & water-yum) to drink and I took that around 5pm that night.

We put Bambino down to bed, and I had a sudden burst of energy and started to clean. Around 9:30pm I started having contractions and by 10pm they were pretty regular and pretty strong. We decided that we should probably call my parents to pick up Bambino as it seemed as though it could be the night for baby to arrive.

4 hours later, the contractions stopped and still no baby.

This morning, the midwife called and let us know that we're no longer being induced as they had stopped all non-emergency inductions because of the quarantine. Instead we had a non-stress test, an OB consult and on Wednesday, if there is still no baby, I’ll blend myself another labour cocktail and see what happens.

I may have my Christmas baby yet! :)