At 6:00 the midwife wanted to break the water. She had done a test and we were stuck at 4cm. We managed to get an hour’s reprive, which is just about up. I hope we’ve progressed enough to further forstall it, but we’ll see soon enough. The contractions are still irregular and manageable.
For a while recently, Carolyn was having what they were calling “late decells”. Meaning that baby’s heart rate was dropping (_decel_lerating) during the late part of contractions. This apparently means that baby is not tolerating the contractions well — not getting enough oxygen during them so the heart rate declines. So, at the moment, the pit is off, Carolyn’s on oxygen and resting. I’m going to see if I can cat nap too. But Carolyn has been told she’s had her last sip of water, in case of emminent surgery.
We had a bit of drama recently. The pitocin (actually oxytocin) level had been gradually pumped up to 8 mili-units. The contractions were coming a bit more regularly, but were still well under controll. Carolyn had been having some twinges of lower back pain, so the doula suggested a hands and knees position to try to pull the baby forward some. In that position, Carolyn felt no contractions at all, and none showed on the monitor. What did show was a lowered heart rate for the baby though, and it extended well past the normal comfort zone of the staff. Soon, the midwife and the primary OB nurse were in here. The bed was made back into a bed from the kneeling platform it had recently become. The pitocin was stopped. Carolyn was put on oxygen, and had a quick cervical check.
Carolyn is now on pitocin. They just upped the dose from the minimum they started her out on about 20 min. ago. The contractions are more frequent, but still pretty managable. She can talk through them. She greeted the most recent one with “Oooh, here’s one.”
No Internet access at the hospital. Will have to use my phone for subsequent updates. I really should have bought that keyboard for it. Oh well. We got checked in after a crazy afternoon of finishing packing and a quick meal at the local Mexican joint. Already, it’s far more medical than I was prepared for, though I mean it’s a hospital, I should have known. But she’s had 3 vials of blood drawn, I don’t even know for what. She’s got a setup for an IV (just in case). She’s had another exam, and been given the cervadil. She’s been told that they’ll have a sleeping drug for her tonight, and some morphine if she wants. We want to avoid those at this point, but we’ll see. I just have to keep reminding myself that going home with a healthy baby is the real exercise, and let go of the whole of our “birth plan”, and take what we can get. Hopefully, Ca will be asleep when I get back to the hospital tonight. Ciao.
We’re in a bit of a collective freak-out at the moment. We went in for our usual “non-stress” test and Biophysical profile (ultrasound) today. The BPP score was a 4 out of 8. They didn’t see sufficient movement, nor fetal breathing. (I wish we’d had the other ultrasound technician.) So, even though our non-stress test was fine, the doctor feels like the baby is now in a “better out than in” place. So, we’ve got an appointment at the hospital for 5:00 this evening. The midwife will join us to administer cervadil — a cervix “ripening” agent. Carolyn was checked today, and for you number geeks, she’s not dilated (0 cm), somewhat effaced (we didn’t get a percentage) and the station is between 0 and +1. The ultrasound weight estimate was 6 lbs, 4 oz.
I find myself, at 10:00 in the evening, sitting in the basement illuminated only by the monitor and a small desk light, blasting techno through my headphones, and programming. Sometimes, life is gooood.
We had Donna and Rebecca over for dinner tonight. They are the two amazing women who put together the wonderful baby shower for Carolyn, helped me paint rooms in the house, etc. They’ve been quite a treat to have in our lives. Anyway, Rebecca brought over a CD of photos that she took at the event, so I uploaded them into the photo gallery.
Also, this week, I got a couple of pictures of my friend David.
Today, I received my Official Coach Card indicating that Carolyn and I have completed our Bradley Method training in preparing for a “natural” birth. I (and I believe Carolyn) certainly benefited greatly from Tera Nelson’s training, and feel much more prepared now than I(we) did even a scant month ago. Still, there’s a twinge of nervousness (sometimes more like panic) about this very physical and quite unknown (to us) process that we have coming up. Not to mention that at the end of this process, we’ll have a baby.
A while back, I took my car into the dealer for service. Since Carolyn gave her car back to her parents, we have just the one vehicle. I dropped her off at work, then dropped the car off at the dealer. I had to use the courtesy shuttle to get back home. I told the driver where I lived, and off we went. Soon, he turned off of the route that I expected him to take. I told him of my newness to town (getting less true, but I still feel like an Altoona outsider), and asked about the route.
