SOOOOoooooo, I just got back from the hospital, annnnnd, well, let me first catch you up.
I most definitely want to have a natural childbirth, but it has been a concern of mine for two reasons: 1. I have an artificial hip - well, if that's what you would call it. I was born without the head and neck of my right femur and no indentation of my right acetabulum (yes, thank you Kinesiology for teaching me these fine terms). As a baby, I had several surgeries to create these parts, but I believe they used cartilage, so technically, I do not have an artificial joint. 2. My mother could not have children naturally. Both my sister and I were delivered via Cesarean, and while I'm not sure whether her cervix condition is hereditary or not, I do not wish to have the same fate.
Reason 1, thus far, has not given me much concern. Though I have had quite a bit of hip discomfort, it has been evenly distributed between both of my hips, and I am told it is a normal pregnancy pain. Reason 2, however, has begun to present some issues. For the past 4 weeks, my cervix has barely dilated to 1 cm. and is, apparently, rather difficult to reach.
With Richard soon facing his winter layoff, it is extremely important for Judah to arrive as quickly as possible so that we don't end up in a delivery room with no insurance. Being that I am currently 40 weeks along, I decided to explain the insurance situation with my doctor and ask if she would be willing to induce my labor. She shared with me that the hospital does not allow labor induction (without medical cause) for first-time moms with complication-free pregnancies to be induced before 42 weeks. She also expressed concern that I would have a 100% chance of a c-section if induced under the present state of my un-dilated cervix. Then she said that she would strip my membranes and hope that would help to dilate my cervix and send me into labor.
After I left from that appointment, I went with Mike & Jessica to check out some apartment complexes for Mike before coming home for a Redbox night with Richard. Then to my surprise, I started having some intense contractions. They started maybe around 8:00 PMish, and as the night went on, they became very consistent and extremely difficult to talk, walk, do anything, through. I thought to myself, "could this really be it? Am I in labor even though I was barely dilated only a few hours before?" Uncertain whether I was experiencing true labor or not, we decided to go into labor and delivery.
By the time I arrived at the hospital, I had been experiencing regular contractions, growing in intensity, lasting about 45-60 seconds each, and about 5 minutes apart for over 3 hours. SO, they wheeled me up, had me pee in a cup, hooked me up to a machine to measure my contractions, asked a bunch of questions and checked my cervix. Even though the machine showed that my contractions were indeed regular and intense, (by the time they were taking me off the machine, they were 2 1/2 minutes apart and reaching the very top bar - needless to say I felt a little less crazy for going in at 1:30 in the morning), they decided to send me home due to my barely dilated cervix claiming that I would be more comfortable laboring at home than in a hospital bed.
ULGGG, so here I sit, writing away with my heating pad since I am in too much pain to sleep. In fact, even as I have been writing this little entry, I have had to break every couple of minutes for these stupid contractions to pass, and while, I do agree that I am possibly more comfortable at home in my own bed, I am concerned now that I won't know when to go back into labor and delivery. Pretty much unless my water breaks in a giant gush (since I don't think I would recognized the trickle version with all the discharge I have been releasing lately), I am afraid that I will just remain at home in order to prevent being sent home a second time. I am just praying that my body will start to cooperate and that this will all be over soon.
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