Induction, Labour and Delivery

1 Day Before Induction

I am 41 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Excited, anxious and scared all wrapped up in one emotional package. Last night I was exhausted but at the same time felt the overwhelming urge to double check our hospital bag and ensure everything was easy to find and access in case we were leaving in the middle of the night.

So I turned up the crazy and ran around (when I say "ran" I actually mean slowing waddled) the house grabbing all the little things I still needed to pack. I made a snack bag for Steve (since I won't really be allowed to eat at the hospital, although I may sneak an apple sauce in). Then when I felt satisfied I snuggled into bed feeling a bit crampy on the front of my abdomen (near my belly button) and tried to relax.

3:26 am

I wake up with a contraction. I harness my yoga breathing techniques and a few moments later the contraction subsides. I'm a freaking physic! Of course there was a reason I HAD to pack a bag. Orrrrrr not. 

3:51am

I get a second (less painful) contraction and that's the end of that excitement. No more contractions, no more excitement.

This is the second time this has happened to me in the middle of the night and what a disappointment it is! You finally think labour is going to begin and instead its just some random contraction leading to a whole lot of nothing!

Preparing for Induction

Preparing yourself for labour striking at any moment is an entirely different thing than preparing for a scheduled induction. For the past 4 weeks (maternity leave) I've wondered when labour would start. The fact that it could be literally any moment, carried it's own set of anxiety but somehow it seems easier to me to just act in the moment and figure it out. Knowing I'm going into the hospital for them to start labour seems much more daunting. I know for sure that sometime between 8am and midnight I'll go into labour. It's happening, one way or another and that is kinda scary.

We chose to delay our induction by 2 days, giving labour an extra chance to start naturally. Since my pregnancy has been completely unremarkable and I am very healthy my doctor felt it was a very reasonable change of plans. I will say I was much more nervous for induction last week, now after delaying it and having a good discussion with 2 medical professionals in the maternity clinic about induction I feel much better about the whole process.

The scary part is wondering how I will respond to the induction. Will I react and have immediate contractions? Or will it be a slow annoying process of having to have the induction redone a couple of times.

Induction Day

Rise and shine! We woke up early and call the hospital to find out what time we will go in to be induced. 10:30am. Ok it's go time! Baby is officially going to be on his or her way! We load up the hospital bag and all of our goodies and head into the maternity ward at the hospital. We are put in a room and we wait for my doctor to come over to assess me. He comes and after my usual internal he says I have progressed enough for a sweep, which is completes and honestly wasn't so terrible. Just uncomfortable. After a discussion we decide that Cervidil is the best induction method for me. It is a wafer thin tab loaded with prostiglandin that they insert like a tampon. It can be left in for 24 hours and if you react to it it can be pulled out and the contractions should stop (let's emphasize SHOULD).

After an hour of observation of both me and baby we get sent home. Now what. Waiting, more waiting. It was a nice day so Steve and I go for a walk and sure enough that started contractions. By 5pm my contractions were regular and painful. By 11pm we were calling the hospital talking about coming in. They advised I could stay home longer if that's where I was comfortable. 30 minutes later my contractions had increased in frequency and pain to the point where I was no longer comfortable at home. The drive to the hospital was the fastest in history. I was contracting for 30 seconds every minute. 

Once in the hospital they began to monitor my contractions and the baby. 1 1/2 hours later they finally pulled out the Cervidil and waited to see how my contractions slowed. Except they didnt. They still came fast and furious. At this point, my "natural" labour plan went out the window and I opted for a shot of morphine. What a saviour! It took the edge off just enough so that we could go home and I could "sleep" for a few hours. I spent 1 1/2 hours in the tub that morning, falling asleep floating in the water then waking up to breathe through a contraction. 

Labour time!

As instructed, we called the hospital in the morning and went back in to be reassessed. I had progressed to 3cm dilated and had effaced some more as well, enough that my doctor decided to break my waters and admit me. Talk about an odd feeling. No pain, just a whole lot of fluid.We were moved to our labour and delivery room (where we would spend the next 5 days).

My timeline from here gets a little fuzzy but at some point the contractions came on hard. We tried the hot shower on my back and belly, although it felt nice, it didn't do much for pain relief. I'd had enough of that and wanted to get out. As soon as I had dried off the contractions ramped up to a whole new level. I could hardly stand or breathe through them. It got to the point where the contractions were 2 minutes long and close together. Too much to handle. I tried to suck on the gas, that did a whole lot of diddly squat. Then we tried the morphine again, absolutely zero pain relief. On to the next thing, an epidural. Ahhhh finally, some relief. The only trouble the the epidural was that it took more to one side than the other. And depending how I was laying down the pain relief would shift and leave some parts of my body. It wasn't perfect but it was so much better than before. 

Hours and hours pass by and I slowly progressed but then I started to run a low grade fever and although I was 8cm dilated my cervix was beginning to swell. Our sweet baby was essentially hitting it's head on my cervix and making it swell. Those 2 factors combined brought my doctor and the OB to advise a cesarean section would be best. NOT in the plan. But hell, this whole process wasn't planned. I went from no pain meds to trying every kind.  At this point I was so exhausted I just wanted our baby to be here and to be here safely. The prep began for my c-section. 

The great thing about c-sections at Langley Hospital is that they keep you, you partner and baby together at all costs. Even though I was strapped to a bed and being sewn back up I was still able to have our baby layed on my chest. It was a challenging surgery. Although you are numb from the tits down you can still feel whats going on in terms of pressure. The spinal tap (numbing) makes you shake uncontrollably and makes you nauseous (in my case, made me vomit). Steve watched mostly he entire surgery (being in the medical field he is far from sqeamish). My only wish was that he didnt have to have a mask on, I could only watch his eyes to see his reaction when he realized we now had a beautiful baby girl. Naturally I started bawling. He was able to cut the cord and the pediatrician on staff in the OR took some lovely photos of it all. 

By the end of it all, 32 hours of labour (from the start of my regular contractions) and a birth plan flipped completely upside down we finally had Wiggles in our arms. Our baby girl, Ella, perfect in every way, and just as wiggly as she was inside me.