On Monday the 18th of January I went in for my regularly scheduled OB appointment. Since I was a few days past 40 weeks I had a non stress test, where the baby’s movement and heart rate are measured, and had the level of amniotic fluid level checked by ultrasound. The non stress test went well, but Dr. J thought the fluid was a little low and scheduled me to be induced the next morning.
I had my heart set on a natural birth and was afraid of induction leading to too many medical interventions, so when I left the appointment I was very upset. I talked to M and our doula and our doula encouraged us to ask if we could re-check the fluid in the morning before going through with the induction. I called Dr. J and she agreed to let me do that.
On Tuesday morning we went to the hospital at 7am not knowing whether we would be having our baby that day or not. I had fasted as instructed for the induction, just in case. At the hospital they gave me a Biophysical profile, which is un ultrasound test where they check the baby’s heart rate, movement, tone, fluid, and whether or not he’s taking any practice breaths (which indicates lung maturity). Everything went well except for the practice breaths, which he didn’t do at all in 30 minutes. The sonographer said to wait there while she had the radiologist consult my OB and they would let us know as soon as possible whether or not they wanted to induce. We waited a long time while they looked for Dr. J and then finally the word came back: Go to Labor & Delivery. That was it!
On our way to L&D we swung by a hospital coffee shop and each ate a muffin, even though I was not supposed to eat. I was starving, and if I was going to be induced, I still wanted to try to get through it without an epidural and especially without a C-section, so I needed to keep my energy up.
When we got to L&D we checked in but the nurses we still weren’t sure if I was actually being induced or not. They had me do another non stress test. During that the baby wasn’t moving much, and at one point had a pretty big heart deceleration. At last, Dr. J came in to see us and explained that with the questionable fluid the day before, the so-so biophysical profile, and now this deceleration, she recommended induction. Could she send me home? Technically yes, but in her best judgment it was not a good idea. M and I agreed that at that point it was better to just deliver, even though we originally had wanted to avoid induction.
I hadn’t been having much in the way of contractions on my own, but Dr. J respected my wish to have a natural birth, so she offered to break my water first and see how much I could progress from there before administering pitocin. She broke my water at 11 am – I’ve heard this is painful for some people but I didn’t feel anything except the water releasing. I was about 2-3cm dilated and 90% effaced at that time. They said they would start the Pitocin at 2pm if I needed it.
M took that opportunity to run home and bring the dog over his mom’s and bring my hospital bag in from the car. He was gone for about an hour, during which time I wandered the halls a little and sat on a birthing ball. I was hooked up to IV fluids, which again was not part of my original natural birth plan, but since I would probably need Pitocin by IV later it made sense. I could still move around but just had to wheel the IV stand around with me. I also had to had continuous fetal monitoring but they did give me wireless monitors so that wasn’t a big deal. I was having some contractions but they were extremely mild, just like an average menstrual cramp. The nurse said that on the monitor they were becoming more organized, but it was obvious to me that they weren’t very strong.
M came back and they started me on Pitocin just before 2pm – they put me on the lowest dose of one unit, and said they’d turn it up one more per hour, going all the way up to a maximum of 20 units. The nurse said this was kind of more like a Pitocin augmentation rather than induction since breaking my water had already got things started.
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