My due date was 23rd January, and at my antenatal appointment the midwife scheduled an induction for the 29th assuming I didn't have the baby before then. Despite being generally adverse to medical intervention, I agreed. I was just so happy to have a definite end date, a resolution to all of the waiting. I went into hospital at 7:30am on Tuesday 29th January 2013. I was stressed - we were running 5 minutes late. As absurd as it sounds, running late stresses me out. I was upset that Shane had let that happen. They saw us into a room where we waited. Eventually I was hooked up to a monitor for Miwdife Diane to check baby's heartbeat. Then they conducted an internal examination and confirmed I was 1cm dilated. They applied a dose of Prostaglandin gel to encourage things along, and from then I was offically admitted to hospital and assigned a room in the maternity ward. We hung out for awhile and watched some tv on my laptop, then went downstairs to have a coffee and snack. Upon our return to my room Midwife Jane hooked me up to a monitor to check my progress and Eli's heartrate. All going well. "Do you want to have this baby tonight or tomorrow?" she asked me. "As soon as he wants to come!" I replied. "In that case, let's get you expressing!" She got me started and At 2pm Diane came to take me back to the labour ward to check on progress. I'd progressed nicely so they decided no need to dose me again, and back to the maternity ward I went. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication between the staff that wasn't apparently until later in the evening. The staff on maternity thought I'd been given more prostaglandin and that the pains I was having were "fake pains", when in fact I had not been given anymore and my labour was simply progressing. They made Shane go home when visiting hours ended - they did let him stay an extra 30minutes, but then decided he had to go. Which sucked. When he was there I was fine, he would help me stand during contractions which made the pain ok, but then I'd lie down in between and rest. Once he was gone, the midwifes/nurses kept trying to make me stay in bed "and rest". Because what every labouring woman wants is to lie alone, in the dark, in a strange place, scared and frightened and in pain? As much as I loved the day staff, I loathed the night staff. One midwife in particular was a very unpleasant lady who seemed inclined to think I was a pathetic wuss. It took me timing my contractions (hard when in pain) to convince her to check me again, at which point she finally agreed yes I was kind of progressing. She then allowed me to walk the corridors rather than being confined to bed. How gracious.
I got as far as the staffroom door, where I had a violent, lengthy contraction that resulted in me vomiting all over the floor. Staff came running. The labour ward midwife was basically "WTF?" and the labour ward b*tch was all "Well she wants to come over to you anyway!" so the labour ward midwife said "Sure no problem" and let me go to the labour ward and have a nice shower. It was heavenly. I would happily have stayed under the water except that being alone I was concerned about slipping or passing out, so eventually I got out. The nice midwife gave me some morphine and put me to bed, it now being the wee early hours of the morning. She suggested we wait until later to call Shane as at that point we may as well let him sleep longer. I reluctantly agreed that was best. And I got a teeny bit of sleep in between the pain which was great!
At 6am approximately I felt a loud pop and my waters broke. I was so proud! Hehehe. Then they called Shane. They did a check and unfortunately I was still not very far along. At that point I made a strategic decision. I had had only a couple of hours of sleep, after 24 hours in hospital. My concern was labouring all day, but being too tired to push. So I asked for an epidural. The funniest part of that was at this particular time my contractions weren't particularly painful and were manageable. It was definitely part of a long-game. It meant I slept for 6 hours (bliss!) got my rest. Poor Shane hadn't bothered to bring his PSP or any other entertainment as he'd assumed it would be a long day with me, instead he spent the day chilling on the couch while I slept. I was in bliss. They then switched off the epi, waited for it to wear off, and then let me start pushing. So I still got to "enjoy" the full birthing experience. Lucky me! They did realise that they had possibly turned it off too soon as I had full feeling but oh well..... I didn't mind the pain of pushing or the baby coming out, but the back pain was agonising and excruciating. Sadly whenever I tried to move positions they lost the baby's heartbeat on the monitor, so I was stuck on my back in full 1950s style out of control labour position, like some chump with no control. There I was, attached to drips and all sorts of rubbish. But I did push that baby out, and it was awesome.
So definitely decisions made that I had not anticipated, but made for a reason to respond to specific circumstances that I found myself in.
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