The Whole Gory Storey...Part 1

Ok, so I finally have a few moments while Rob is watching Jacob, dad is cleaning our dishes (woo hoo!) and mom is reading a book to put down our dear son's birth story.

Sunday evening, 17th May, I went into the Coombe hospital for the induction. We got there about 6:30 and I got to my room about 7pm. Of course, my file wasn't where it should be... I think my doctor's people forgot to send it to admissions. What that meant for me, though, was that they couldn't start the induction without the file. So I sat around until about 10:30 and nothing happened. By then I was a bit frustrated because it meant spending the night in the hospital NOT going into labor. So Rob left about 10:30 and I settled down for a night of disappoinment. LUCKILY, some lovely soul did go retrieve my file, so about 11pm a doctor appeared to give me the gel, Prostin to ripen my cervix. Yippie! The gel itself was a bit tingly feeling...not QUITE stinging, but not althogether unpleasant.

After the gel, I had to stay in bed for an hour to make sure it did it's work. Of course, that's when my bladder decided it needed to be emptied. I at least made it to the end of that hour. Just about midnight, I started having 'prostin pains' which are (I assume) similar to some beginning contration pains. For me, they lasted about 20 seconds and came 2-5 minutes apart. Now, one or two of these pains isn't really all that bad. But by noon on Monday, I was pretty fed up with them; kind of like Chinese water torture. My doctor came in later that day to check (poke around) my cervix (that time the examination hurt) and decided to give me another dose of Prostin.

Can I just stop here a moment and comment on my newfound hatred of the fetal monitor machines? I think they should rename them the pregnant woman torture device. I was put on this damned monitor several times during my stay. Each time, I was asked to hold one of the monitor bits in place to make sure they could maintain the heartbeat. Which is all well and good, until they come back 30 mintues later (after saying they'd be back in 20 minutes), your back is aching now and your arm is about to fall off from pressing the monitor on your belly. The midwife THEN says, 'oh, let's give it a few more minutes,' and disappears for another half hour! Grrrr. I am NOT a fan.

Alright, back to the story. I have now been having 'prostin pains' for 19 hours (ow ow ow ow ow!!), have decided against taking the petadin morphine shot, been given one more painful vaginal assault and have FINALLY been told they can break my waters....