the pendulum has swung...

Well, after being on bedrest for almost a month, it seems the baby has taken the hint to stay put. I've been back on my feet for 2 weeks now, and he seems very content to stay where he is!

We had a false alarm at 36 weeks 5 days (Saturday 2/26), with contractions getting stronger & closer together...which went away at the hospital when they had me drink lots of water. On bedrest I'd been drinking lots of water because it was there and I was just sitting/lying there. So once I was up, not only was I not drinking as much water because I was busy with other things, I was needing more water thanks to finally being able to vacuum and other physically demanding activities. Oops.

The next Tuesday morning (3/1) at my appointment I told my doctor that I thought I might be leaking amniotic fluid. Since I HAVE had a slow leak with 2 of the other 3 (with Katy being a BIG leak instead), I've been overly worried about that. He checked, got the alkaline pH test (which means yes!), but no ferning pattern (which means no, and is more accurate than the pH test). So that meant most likely I hadn't, but he wanted me back in on Friday to check again.

Meanwhile I was having lots of contractions every evening. Then Thursday I had contractions all day long. I noticed them start at story time at 9:35ish, and they continued at roughly 5 min intervals until I went to bed at midnight. I took a nap, I drank lots of water, I went for a walk...nothing made them get any better or worse. Ugh.

So then I went in on Friday (3/4), and when we checked for amniotic fluid it was the same results - alkaline pH, but he didn't see any ferning. At this point, though, taking all things into account, he decided there was a good chance that my water HAD broken, and I had possibly been walking around with ruptured membranes for a couple days. The thing is, there's risk either way - if it hadn't broken, it's too early to induce without medical reason and the baby could be not ready, but if it had, there's a big risk of infection. So he decided to go ahead and say "Yes, her water has broken, we need to do an induction."

I was so excited! Katy & I went home and met Dan there, I got last minute things packed (like my glasses, that I obviously can't just leave in the bag), I ate a little lunch since I wouldn't be eating for many hours, arranged for the kids to be taken care of (assuming at that point that Dan would be able to pick them up around bedtime, or at least only a couple hours later), and headed in to have this baby!

We got to the hospital around 1:00...and got to wait a while before anything started. Then finally they got an IV in and did a round of penicillin (thanks to the possibility that I'd broken my water days earlier), but still no pitocin. We finally got started on pitocin around 3:00, but were still feeling hopeful that the baby would be born that day.

Then...nothing. And more nothing. They kept turning up the pitocin, and eventually I started having some pretty painful contractions. But I didn't dilate at all. I was still at a 1. Boo. So at midnight (after NINE hours on pitocin) they turned it off to give my uterus a break, and planned on resuming in the morning.

Around 4:30 am my nurse came in and inserted a pill to help make my cervix more favorable. That's supposed to be done 3 hours before pitocin, so at that point the plan was the turn the pitocin back on around 7:30.

So at 7:30ish my new nurse came in, woke me up, and told me she was going to do an amnisure test, which is a 99% accurate in telling if your water has broken. According to her, even the ferning test is only 60% (which I find hard to believe it's THAT low). We knew there was a possibility that my water hadn't really broken, but had been acting certain to avoid the drama of "she probably has, but maybe not, but at this point we think it's better to induce than wait around for an infection to kick in, especially since she's almost 38 weeks, the fetal age is probably about 5 days ahead of that even, and she's measuring large." In hindsight, I wonder if I could've avoided having that test done, but I was too groggy and startled to argue. So she did the test, and it was negative. My water hadn't broken after all.

Now, I wonder if this would have been handled differently in Utah. I'd been in the hospital for 19 hours, been on pitocin for 9 of those, and was really anxious to get this baby out. Add in the complications of childcare (all 3 of my little ones had been at my visiting teacher's house for 16 hours rather than the expected 7 or 8), the cost of being admitted to the hospital a separate time...I wonder if a more family centered and less hippy liberal society would've just let me continue with the plan to start pitocin again. Maybe not, but in my annoyance with the whole situation I think it's possible.

So they decided to not resume pitocin. At that point I was having regular, painful contractions as a result of the pill (I have GOT to find out the name for it, I keep hearing it and forgetting immediately!), so they had us stay until those started spacing out and being less painful. We were finally discharged shortly after noon, just shy of 24 hours after being admitted.

Now THAT was disappointing/discouraging/frustrating! I had no idea that pitocin could fail to work, and even if I had, I sure wouldn't have thought it would happen to me! The end of pregnancy always seems to take forever, and knowing that pitocin couldn't even get me to have this baby is certainly not helping! It's hard to have the motivation to go for a walk or something when pitocin didn't do the trick.

So now I'm huge, hormonal, and cranky. My super strong pregnancy fingernails all broke off. And today at my check up I found out that the baby was back up high (apparently he'd dropped at the hospital), and I un-dilated back to a 1.5 (I'd been up to a 2.5 before we left). Once again, if we hadn't already been planning on being done after this one, we certainly are now! But hey, my other pregnancies have all been way easier, but produced fairly high maintenance babies. So maybe this baby will be super easy to make up for all the trouble he's caused prenatally! Please? It's only fair!