After
I learned about Cholestasis, that Friday morning I called my midwife group and
left a message with their nurse. About
an hour later they called me back and told me to come into their office
immediately.
They
did a series of tests and told me that the test results won’t be back until the
following week and explained how serious Cholestasis can be for the baby and me. I was prescribed medication and was told that
if I didn’t go into labor naturally over that weekend then on Monday we would
have a serious discussion about inducing labor.
At that point, I let one of the midwives strip my membranes because I
did not want to be induced with Pitocin.
From
the literature I read on childbirth, I learned that Pitocin (which induces
labor and makes the labor harder), epidurals (which helps with the pain but can
increases the length of the labor) and other interventions in childbirth could
be very hard on the mother’s body and on the baby. For example, the harder the labor and the
longer the labor, there is a greater chance of an increase or decrease in the
baby’s heart rate during labor, which, in each case, most-likely leads to a
greater chance that the mother will have to undergo a C-section. Many friends and family members were forced to
undergo a C-section because of some type of medical intervention, so I
dedicated that weekend to doing what I could in order to get the baby out
naturally.
Fast
Forward to Monday morning… I was very disappointed
to wake up once again not in labor. I had
done every old wives tale trick to naturally get this labor going and
nothing! At the midwife appointment,
they did another series of tests to make sure the baby was still doing well and
to see if my liver was still releasing bile into my body The test showed that
my baby was doing well but my liver was still releasing bile. With this news, my
midwife highly recommended the induction. Since the tests they took that day showed that
the baby was still in good shape, I asked for one more night to mentally
prepare, the midwife agreed.
The
next part of this story is really a bit of blur… to help me organize it I wrote
it in a timeline, so if some details seem to be missing its because I really
just don’t remember them.
May 15, 2012
9:00 P.M.: My husband
and I arrived at the hospital waiting room
10:00-11:00 P.M.: I am admitted to
the hospital and given a room so I could start my slow induction. Cervidil
will be in inserted tonight and if I don’t go into labor they would give me
Pitocin in the morning. We are bought to
our room and a midwife meets us there and reassures us that we are making the
best decision for our child and takes the time to answer any last minute
questions. I change into my nightgown. The midwife examines me and I am 1cm dilated
and 60% effaced. The Cervidil is inserted and I am given a sleeping aid. Monitors are placed on me for a couple of
hours to monitor the baby. The monitors are
very irritating because they move as I move and sometimes they slip into a
position where it was not able to monitor the baby and the nurse would have to
wake me up to reposition it. This made
it very difficult for me to get any rest.
2:00 A.M. The
monitor is removed and I could finally sleep.
2:30 A.M. Contractions start and I can no loner sleep. I am so pissed! MT
has to lie in the bed next to me in order to message my lower back as each
contraction hits. He’s such a sweetie,
but this means both of us aren’t getting the good night sleep we are supposed
to get.
8:00 A.M. I go to the bathroom and
the Cervidil falls out. My nurse is not
concerned because the Cervidil had been in place for the recommended amount of
time.
9:00 A.M. Midwife comes in and
checks my progress. I am now 2 cm dilated
and 75% effaced. I was hoping to be further
along, so that they wouldn’t have to give me the Pitocin, but with these
results Pitocin was the next step. My
midwife told me that I could order breakfast and walk around and that my Pitocin
drip will start at 11 A.M.