At the appointment I met with the midwife that I liked. We asked her her opinion on inducing and thought that she was going to be totally against it since she is a midwife and usually they are all about natural, holistic treatments and not just drugs, drugs, drugs. But she was all for it. She said since he was already late that there was no doubt in her mind that they could get me into labor and she said it was all geometry now. Will the head fit thru the pelvis? And that would be an issue if we induced or if he came naturally. My OBGYN had set the induction date January 23rd with me coming in the evening of January 22 to start induction, but the midwife said there was no harm in starting the process TODAY! So of course I jumped on that. Next she did something very mean. I thought she was just going to check my cervix and see how much I was dilated, but she stripped my membrane. For those of you who don't know what that is it's when someone sticks their finger up inside your cervix and moves it all around to try to get stuff going. My cousin said she didn't even know her doctor was doing it til she was done. I DEFINITELY knew something was different. She stuck her hand up WAY TOO HIGH! I felt like a puppet on a hand. I wiggled like a worm on a hook. It was so intrusive and uncomfortable! I felt so violated. When she was done I definitely felt different and I didn't like her as much. AND I was SURE I needed an epidural. If I couldn't take that? Ha. I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I thought was nerves. Then I thought was cramps. Then I found out was contractions!
Finally in my own room at Northside I was so excited. I was hooked up to the monitor and they showed me how to watch Vincent's heart rate and the rise and fall of a different line when I was having contractions. I felt pretty good watching it rise and feeling completely under control. We got to the room at about 5:00, and they gave me the Cervidil (looks like a tampon with a long string that ripens your cervix) at 7:30. My contractions started getting worse but were still manageable by 10:30 when they gave me Ambien so that I could sleep thru my contractions. Definitely didn't work. Instead of falling asleep I just got really tired, but felt every contraction. Being tired completely shook my resolve. I knew I wanted the epidural, but I didn't know when was too early to ask for it. I didn't want the nurses to think I was a wimp. I wanted someone to come in and praise me for taking those contractions like a champ. The contractions got worse and worse, but nobody came. What made it even worse was that some of the really bad contractions didn't go up really high on the monitor so I didn't even have the satisfaction of seeing that. When a nurse finally came in I told her that the Ambien wasn't working and I couldn't sleep at all so she gave me morphine. This kind of worked. It made it so I could sleep, but I would wake up for each contraction. This almost made it worse because I couldn't feel any of the time between the contractions. It just felt like someone was coming into the room, beating me up, leaving, then coming right back to do it again. They felt like the blood pressure cuff they put on your arm in that moment when it's really pumped up and you think for a second TOO TIGHT! but then it goes down, but the cuff was around my uterus. I was in such pain that I had to grab on to the railing of the bed with both hands and bury my face in my pillow, but I still couldn't bring myself to ring the nurse and ask for the epidural. I thought surely someone would see the monitor and rush it to my rescue saying that surely I wanted the epidural now since I had told them I eventually wanted it, but no one came. Finally I woke Matt up, but couldn't even ask him to get the nurse for the epidural. I just started crying. Matt finally asked if I wanted the nurse to come in with the epidural and I took my opportunity and just said yes.
When the anesthesiologist came in to administer it he wasn't warm or friendly at all. He wasn't mean, just all business, like I was a broken copy machine and he was there to fix me. I really thought he was just going to stick me without even warning me, but the nurse kept me informed about what was happening. All I felt was a sting from the anesthesia. They told me the big needle was going in, but I couldn't feel a thing. I felt one more contraction and nothing more. I was one cloud nine. I was so thrilled. I wanted to kiss the man (or woman) who created the epidural. I floated off to sleep with a smile on my face.
