still waiting
The last ten days have been the longest of my life.
Here's the short version: for medical reasons, we tried an induction of labor on the 15th. Nothing happened but a long, frustrating day in the hospital (and some very bad news about a dear friend of ours that arrives via a cell phone message while we're waiting). After a battle with my doctor over my blood pressure that necessitates some extra lab work (he is sure I'm developing pre-eclampsia, I'm certain it's just white-coat fever), they rescheduled us for the following Monday. We called in five times and waited all day by the phone, but there was no room at the hospital for an induction. We rescheduled for Wednesday. After a day full of Cytotec, no contractions, no dilation, so we switch to Pitocin. I spend several hours hooked up in every possible way: IV, blood pressure cuff, fetal monitor, feeling like I'd rather be in jail because I could at least walk my cell (good news is, baby B's heartrate just chugs along at 140-160 bpm, he's doing belly flips and punts and hiccups, he's a little locomotive). No contractions.
They take me off the Pitocin so I can get a few hours sleep (for some reason they moved me to a birthing suite delivery room, where the bed is really not meant for sleeping, so there's not much of that), then start again at 5 a.m. I am just beginning to have contractions at 8 a.m. when the new doctor comes on call. She and my doctor recommend continuing with Pitocin and checking me again several hours later. Mentally exhausted (partly because the next words out of new doctor's mouth--keep in mind I've never met her before--are "You know you're going to have to go on the South Beach diet when this baby arrives," and tells me again about my baby's risk of sharing my chronic health condition) but committed, I agree.
A half hour later she comes in and says, "I just got new information. The special care nurseries at all three local hospitals are full. If we continue this induction and your baby arrives before nursery space becomes available, if he needs to go into the nursery, we'll have to send him to (names two cities, one three hours away, one five hours away)." Now, I've talked with the pediatrician and know that there's a slight risk of baby needing some special intervention, but hearing it like this and imagining my little guy whisked off, is just too much. I burst into tears. Doctor keeps talking (amazing how medical professionals don't even skip a beat when someone is crying in front of them), and I say, I need a few minutes to consider this. They tell us that if we stop the induction today, they'll be sure and get us in on Saturday (when, theoretically, the nursery situation will have improved). Absolutely certain. B and I talk, we decide we need to keep going. We'll deal with the nursery situation when/if it materializes.
They turn up the Pitocin, and I try to prepare myself for another long day (and the new, previously unimagined possibility that, since today's our due date, this baby might actually go overdue!). Half hour later, the nurse and doctor come back. Doctor says, "Your choices have changed." This time they tell us that we no longer have the choice of continuing the induction in their hospital today. We can either go to another hospital two hours away, which appears to have room, or come back on Saturday. I ask, what if the nursery situation hasn't improved on Saturday? Well, they backpedal, then it's the hospital two hours away.
I'm a freakin' wreck by this point, but I'm taking this as a sign from the universe that this baby is not being induced (I'm starting to think of it as "evicted") today. We call our doula and our friend, who meet us at the hospital. Our doula confabs with the nurse, then comes back in and says, I've never seen this before in 30 years of doing this work, but it's true. There is no room at the inns all around us. . .
We have lunch with our doula and friend and go home. B feels like we've been bumped from an airline flight and is pissed. I say, "Yes, but you feel like you've been bumped from an airline flight because it was oversold. I feel like I got bumped because someone thought I looked like a terrorist."
I know I'm all sensitized with pregnancy hormones, but it feels somehow personal to me. Trying to advocate for myself, trying to be allowed to manage my chronic health condition in the hospital without too much intervention (which has meant fielding disbelieving calls from pharmacists who say, are you sure you take this medication in this dose? and nurses having to provide extra monitoring, who are vocal about their frustrations that my baby is active and doesn't like to stay on the monitor, as well as about how difficult it is to locate him through my belly fat), dealing with my doctor who has turned out to be the most conservative monitor-Nazi possible, not allowing me to move around at all even before the Pitocin was started, dealing with shift-changes that change the induction protocol, being moved. . .and all for nothing. We've lost nearly all the five days B was going to be able to take off work after the baby arrived, just waiting around in the hospital. We've now been in the hospital for three days, and I'm terrified of what this is costing us.
So, it's keep my eyes on the prize time: when this is all over, there will be a baby B. We just have to wait it out. I'm not sure now what to do about inducing again, but I suspect my doctor's going to freak when he finds out we got booted--he didn't even like waiting full-term. I suppose it's a good exercise in parenthood--letting go of my own agenda. Still, I'll be glad when he's here and home and all these extra people are out of our lives.
Here's the short version: for medical reasons, we tried an induction of labor on the 15th. Nothing happened but a long, frustrating day in the hospital (and some very bad news about a dear friend of ours that arrives via a cell phone message while we're waiting). After a battle with my doctor over my blood pressure that necessitates some extra lab work (he is sure I'm developing pre-eclampsia, I'm certain it's just white-coat fever), they rescheduled us for the following Monday. We called in five times and waited all day by the phone, but there was no room at the hospital for an induction. We rescheduled for Wednesday. After a day full of Cytotec, no contractions, no dilation, so we switch to Pitocin. I spend several hours hooked up in every possible way: IV, blood pressure cuff, fetal monitor, feeling like I'd rather be in jail because I could at least walk my cell (good news is, baby B's heartrate just chugs along at 140-160 bpm, he's doing belly flips and punts and hiccups, he's a little locomotive). No contractions.
They take me off the Pitocin so I can get a few hours sleep (for some reason they moved me to a birthing suite delivery room, where the bed is really not meant for sleeping, so there's not much of that), then start again at 5 a.m. I am just beginning to have contractions at 8 a.m. when the new doctor comes on call. She and my doctor recommend continuing with Pitocin and checking me again several hours later. Mentally exhausted (partly because the next words out of new doctor's mouth--keep in mind I've never met her before--are "You know you're going to have to go on the South Beach diet when this baby arrives," and tells me again about my baby's risk of sharing my chronic health condition) but committed, I agree.
A half hour later she comes in and says, "I just got new information. The special care nurseries at all three local hospitals are full. If we continue this induction and your baby arrives before nursery space becomes available, if he needs to go into the nursery, we'll have to send him to (names two cities, one three hours away, one five hours away)." Now, I've talked with the pediatrician and know that there's a slight risk of baby needing some special intervention, but hearing it like this and imagining my little guy whisked off, is just too much. I burst into tears. Doctor keeps talking (amazing how medical professionals don't even skip a beat when someone is crying in front of them), and I say, I need a few minutes to consider this. They tell us that if we stop the induction today, they'll be sure and get us in on Saturday (when, theoretically, the nursery situation will have improved). Absolutely certain. B and I talk, we decide we need to keep going. We'll deal with the nursery situation when/if it materializes.
They turn up the Pitocin, and I try to prepare myself for another long day (and the new, previously unimagined possibility that, since today's our due date, this baby might actually go overdue!). Half hour later, the nurse and doctor come back. Doctor says, "Your choices have changed." This time they tell us that we no longer have the choice of continuing the induction in their hospital today. We can either go to another hospital two hours away, which appears to have room, or come back on Saturday. I ask, what if the nursery situation hasn't improved on Saturday? Well, they backpedal, then it's the hospital two hours away.
I'm a freakin' wreck by this point, but I'm taking this as a sign from the universe that this baby is not being induced (I'm starting to think of it as "evicted") today. We call our doula and our friend, who meet us at the hospital. Our doula confabs with the nurse, then comes back in and says, I've never seen this before in 30 years of doing this work, but it's true. There is no room at the inns all around us. . .
We have lunch with our doula and friend and go home. B feels like we've been bumped from an airline flight and is pissed. I say, "Yes, but you feel like you've been bumped from an airline flight because it was oversold. I feel like I got bumped because someone thought I looked like a terrorist."
I know I'm all sensitized with pregnancy hormones, but it feels somehow personal to me. Trying to advocate for myself, trying to be allowed to manage my chronic health condition in the hospital without too much intervention (which has meant fielding disbelieving calls from pharmacists who say, are you sure you take this medication in this dose? and nurses having to provide extra monitoring, who are vocal about their frustrations that my baby is active and doesn't like to stay on the monitor, as well as about how difficult it is to locate him through my belly fat), dealing with my doctor who has turned out to be the most conservative monitor-Nazi possible, not allowing me to move around at all even before the Pitocin was started, dealing with shift-changes that change the induction protocol, being moved. . .and all for nothing. We've lost nearly all the five days B was going to be able to take off work after the baby arrived, just waiting around in the hospital. We've now been in the hospital for three days, and I'm terrified of what this is costing us.
So, it's keep my eyes on the prize time: when this is all over, there will be a baby B. We just have to wait it out. I'm not sure now what to do about inducing again, but I suspect my doctor's going to freak when he finds out we got booted--he didn't even like waiting full-term. I suppose it's a good exercise in parenthood--letting go of my own agenda. Still, I'll be glad when he's here and home and all these extra people are out of our lives.
posted by nann at 8:41 AM
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