Even though we all had hoped for an early natural birth, our little guy was stubborn and wouldn't arrive on Halloween, or the full moon, or on the Friday, or on the weekend..
.but waited until the induction. Mom, Dale, and Shelly all arrive on Monday to prepare with us for heading to the hospital. We headed down to the hospital for our appointment at 7:30pm. Our Dr. had hope to start the induction late so we could get a decent amount of sleep that night. When we got there, we parked and then walked to the emergency room for admittance...which was a gazillion miles through the maze of a hospital. Once at the emergency room, the attendant told as to HEAD BACK to the baby floor. Well, the upside is that all that walking was good for me and kept my mind off things to come. I had a good idea of what was to go on, but didn't really know about the pain or where it would hurt the most. I thought I had been having some contractions that weekend, but they were sporadic, low, and across my back.
Anyway, we get to the right floor and they have a room all ready for me. Here all the birth rooms are singles with their own bathrooms and pull out sleeper couches. I'm not looking forward to being hooked to an IV for the rest of the duration, but I liked the idea that we could watch tv. The bed itself was a bit uncomfortable, but what did I expect? The fun thing was that they had a white board in the corner so that you could write the nurse's name, dr's name, and family names in case you forgot. Also on the board was a place for goals...Of course, we had to write "have a baby"! At first it seemed a bit awkward in the room with me, Brian, Shelly, mom and Dale but it was also great to know that they were all there for support in this adventure.
My first nurse (they changed every 12 hours) was sweet, but had a bugger of a time putting the IV in. It didn't go in until the third try (ouch). First drug into the body was oxytocin to help dilate my cervix...I started at about 2-3cm. They also hooked me up to the fetal heart rate monitor and contraction monitor. It was very similar to the NST we had at the dr's. Then...we waited. Mom and Shelly were anxious for things to start rolling, but I was pretty sure I was in for a long slow night before active labor kicked in. At the beginning, it was hard not to just watch the baby's heart beat increase and decrease as he moved around and then also to watch to see if I was feeling any contractions (I wasn't). I did get to watch "Over the Hedge" and "Chicken Little" while lying there. Eventually, Mom and Shelly went home to sleep and Dale zonked in the waiting room and Brian on the pull-out sleeper. I got a second drug dose around midnight...but still very few contractions actually felt. I did start to feel crampy...which the nurses took as a good sign. I did sleep pretty well, however. The biggest problem was turning to the side and having the fetal monitor loose the baby's heartbeat.
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