Entry #670559, added on 10-05-09 @ 1:07 pm EDT
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| To induce or Not to induce Is besides the point... | Entry #670559 |
It could have been worse - we could have been right... but I have to say that although castor oil is no fun to eat, it's not as bad as some herbal treatments.
A note about me and hospitals - as a daughter of a lab tech and a nurse, I was practically raised in them. However, events in my life have prompted me to prefer home treatment and nourishing as opposed to the almost slash and burn ways of modern medicine. I will not turn this into a soapbox on that, but such a mentality is part of what created the situation. In some cases, the Hospital is wonderful, but unless I have a dire problem requiring modern technology, I avoid the hospital when I can.
Well, so, my official due date was Sept 19th and I was two weeks beyond and no baby. We talked about how it was highly possible that the due date was off. I had not had a regular cycle since my first pregnancy and so it was all a guess, but we'd been accurate with my other two kids (my son born 6 days after and with my youngest I'd gone into labor the night of my due date). But, you just can't get to 42 weeks and then change the date at the end - looks sort of suspicious. By that late in pregnancy, it's hard for anyone to really know what week you're on, even with an ultrasound. So, after desperately trying to induce with all natural means, including castor oil, pumping and all other methods … we got a regular cycle of contractions and thought we were on our way. We didn’t want to go to the hospital and risk them inducing as I hear they routinely induce overdue babies. Instead we were convinced that we would just have the baby that night(Friday). Midwife said sleep until I couldn’t sleep any more and then call her. So I slept and around 11:30 pm I was darn near close to calling in the midwife, but I fought to steal a few more minutes of sleep. Then one time I went to sleep and didn’t wake until like 5:30 am. The contractions were gone and all seemed an eerie stillness. I was still dealing the diarrhea from the castor oil, but outside of that, I actually felt good. Yet frustrated and upset. So close and yet so far. Meanwhile, my Husband had slept well the whole night, getting more rest than usual. I woke him around 6:15 am and we decided to go walk and see if we could get it started again. We walked around the block and actually it was quite a nice walk in the cool of a wet morning. Ah, the irony of it, I felt better than I had in a while, but that was the problem.
We came back to the house, had some eggs and washed dishes. The midwife eventually called to check on me and I told her what had happened. So she came over and we tried a few more things to see if we could restart labor, but nothing really happened.
Meanwhile, so sure that we were at the end, we had taken the kids over to be watched by friends. They had even kept the kids overnight. When my Husband went to get them Sat morning my oldest was still enjoying herself and apparently declared that if I hadn’t had the baby that she wasn’t coming home. So only the youngest came home at that point. After a couple hours the midwife checked on me over the phone but when she found that nothing had happened, she declared that she would really prefer at that point to check things out with the hospital. The abrupt end of labor in the middle of the night had her a bit worried. So, she set about seeing what hospital would see us on the weekend and my Husband took our youngest back to join the others.
So, off we went to the hospital. The midwife came with us and we turned up to explain our situation. When we told them that my due date was the 19th they kept saying “of October?” So they filled in the info, got me in a hospital gown, on a bed and on monitors tracking the baby’s heartbeat and one to track contractions (which only proved that nothing was actually going on in that regard). Then they asked more questions and the nurse went off to find out what the doctor on call (and in OR) wanted run on me. The response sent me in for a sonogram where they visually checked on the condition of the baby, the placenta, the baby’s position blood flow in the cord and all vital organs. They estimated/measured the size of the baby, the head, stomach and the amount of fluid. Everything looks good and by their guidelines they estimate the due date as actually being more like the 11th of October. So, with danger passed, then the doctor started recommending the standard tests run on all typical patients – prenatal labs, glucose tolerance etc., including “see an obstetrician until you deliver”. Um, yeah right, if I wanted to see an obstetrician and deliver at the hospital, I would have already signed up with a hospital. Needless to say, we didn’t agree to it all. But after some discussion, we decided to let them do the bloodpanel. However, they assumed a package deal and the glucose was part of the bloodwork requested, so then they went to ask the doc (by phone again) if she (yes, first name was Karen so we assume it’s a girl though we never met her or talked to her) wanted the “one hour” or the “three hour” test. The doc said that she would like the three hour one but since I hadn’t been fasting for 8 hours, it wasn’t really feasible (duh, as it was I was hungry) so the 1 hour one instead. The thing is that it’s NOT 1 hour! Some how even though a drink of some sort was mentioned, we got the impression that blood would be taken with the other vials and that one hour later they would do one more draw and we could go. There’s no way I was staying for 3 hours but we agreed to this extra hour. It’s not that I was interested in the particular test, but we didn’t give them a hard time. So, they took the blood, which was a lot for my system. I tend to be pretty low blood pressure and add on top of that how little I had eaten lately; I hadn’t had anything but fluids since about two hours before getting there. I took it all well I think until she was taking the butterfly needle out and used some retractable button. That hurt! I voiced it and the response from the nurse was along the lines of “And this from the woman who wants to have her baby naturally.” I got defensive about the remark and my midwife stepped in to point out some differences, but I think the nurse repeated a variation of the comment like three times as if I was a big baby at pain or something. But yet this is the nurse who had put in all the info to the computer of me having already had three children at home. Guess it shows how naive I can be that it’s not until recounting the story tonight that I realize/admit that I was actually being mocked. My Husband noted it at the time and it added to his own frustration that built that night. By the time we left he was fuming. The final straw was basically that they had a night shift change while we were waiting for the hour to pass. I was stuck on that hard bed, my tailbone sore from so much weight, still in that crazy gown because the nurse said the monitors needed to stay on, while my Husband snacked on cold French fries and we cooled our heels. I was hungry and needed to use the bathroom. But I came from the medical side in so many ways – I didn’t want to upset things by being non-compliant – so I fought to be patient and just get through it. So, about the time we expected the new blood draw, my Husband headed to the front desk. They were surprised at the misunderstanding. You see, an hour after the first draw, then I’m supposed to drink some syrup and then wait another hour to have my blood drawn. It’s a two hour thing, not one! Ah, no. It was already past 7 pm, we had three kids who we hadn’t hardly seen for over 24 hours, had been at the hospital for hours past when they declared no problems, I wouldn’t be allowed to eat for another hour and they would draw more blood and probably use the same style needle again – um, not interested.
By this time my Husband was highly frustrated and we were both very happy that we have had all our children at home with a midwife.
We went and picked up our kids (who by the end of the day had really missed us) and we headed home. After they were in bed, I treated myself to some ice cream without oil, and relax to watch a movie with my Husband.
-Renegade
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