Monday, March 4th,
2013
As I type, I am five days overdue.
I must admit, this post might be a bit of a downer. I am feeling down. I also feel quite silly saying that, because
the reason I am down is because it seems things aren’t going according to “plan”. After all my talk about being “ok” with my
body and my baby making the decisions when it comes to this birth, I am
frustrated and discouraged. I am
starting to feel like my home birth is not going to happen.
I have been examined twice in the past week and a half by
my midwives, and both times I was zero cms dilated, and my cervix was nowhere
near being “ripe”, it was long and altogether “unfavourable”. Too much information? Sorry.
It’s the truth. When your cervix
is not ripe, that means it is not ready for contractions, which means that most
likely your baby is just sitting pretty in there, living its life like it has
for the past few months. Not wanting to
go anywhere and therefore not initiating what I am desperate for – labour.
I had to book an induction date. It’s booked for Saturday. When you are induced, you must go to the
hospital and have your baby there.
Induction often leads to many interventions – exactly the interventions
I wanted to avoid by having a home birth.
I am more likely to receive an epidural, more likely to need an episiotomy,
more like to need forceps to pull this baby out…and most scary of all, I am
more likely to end up in C-Section.
The thing that really is not sitting well with me is the
idea that we may have to force this baby out.
I can’t help but envision my baby in a nice, warm, safe environment –
and then smoking him or her out against his or her will. I’ve wanted this to be so natural, and induction
is not natural! Yet at the same time, I’ve
been talking to this baby like a crazy person, begging him or her to please get
moving, please do something! Give me some
sort of sign that you are on your way.
Give me the mucous plug, give me a mild contraction. All it seems to be doing is shifting around
like normal, trying to get more comfortable in there. I’ve been drinking raspberry leaf tea, using
Evening Primrose oil, walking like crazy, eating spicy food, having sex (which
is no easy task by the way), and pretty much everything else any random online
article tells me to try (I’ve even tried blowing up balloons. How ridiculous!)
I also know I should be focusing on what REALLY
matters. My baby, healthy and happy and
in my arms, which either way is going to be in about a week. How he or she got there doesn’t really
matter, right? I know this is true. But at the same time, I feel like that is a
moot point. I know my baby will be
healthy because there is no way I would do anything to put my baby at risk in
order to stick to the “plan”. I am going
to do whatever is necessary. I am not
going to ignore the advice of my midwives just so I can have my baby at
home. But that doesn’t change the fact
that I really, really wanted to bring my baby into this world in our home, and
I wanted the two of us to do it together, in our zone, with me putting into practice
all of the tools that I have learned and prepared for over the last few
months. It’s just not how I ever, ever
expected it to go. I thought I was going
to go early. We have a “pool” at work,
and everyone guessed the birthday, sex and weight of the baby. I estimated 2 weeks before my delivery
date. Looking back, it was pretty absurd. But I was convinced!
Thursday, March
7th
I am now 8 days overdue.
There has been nothing new to indicate that baby is coming soon. After my bad day on Monday, I decided to keep
working on getting the baby to move naturally.
I continued with the evening primrose oil and upped my consumption of raspberry
leaf tea. Most importantly though, I
decided to try to shift my mindset. I began
to use mediation and visualization. I
started with a long bath, soothing yogic music and visualizing my baby, safe
and happy in my arms after having been delivered in our home. I visualized the labour (in my home), I visualized
my cervix softening and I visualized a safe, warm, comfortable me holding safe,
warm, comfortable baby. I then moved
onto the exercise ball, where I bounced the hours away, all the while thinking
happy thoughts.
I got in touch with a homeopath, who spent some time with
me discussing my fears, or thoughts, or whatever else could possibly be holding
me back. I told her of my (perhaps
irrational, perhaps not) fear of C-Section.
She prescribed a remedy that she believed would really work. Unfortunately it didn’t.
This morning I went to see an old friend who is now an acupuncturist. I had a lovely appointment, I felt very relaxed
and it was also lovely to see her after many years.
But something was still missing. I didn’t truly feel like I would be going
into labour anytime soon.
I had an appointment this afternoon for an ultrasound and
“non-stress-test” to see how baby is doing.
The appointment was at the hospital. It’s the first time I’ve stepped into the
hospital since I’ve been pregnant. All
of my appointments have been with my midwives.
I didn’t even do a tour at Southlake because I was so sure I was having
a home birth. The tests all went well,
everything was positive and baby is doing fine.
However, my midwife (Yvonne) checked my cervix afterwards and….still no
progress. None! After everything I’ve
done this week and last, nothing has progressed. Meaning the likelihood of me going into
spontaneous labour is still very small.
I had a long talk with Yvonne about the next steps (to
induce as planned for Saturday, or try and get a few more days to see what
happens) and it helped me gain some clarity.
I suddenly realized I have to let go…let go of the home birth. I had to gather it all up in my mind and
watch it float away. As I am typing this
I am weeping. I feel a sense of loss of
an experience that I was so connected to, so looking forward to my entire
pregnancy. I feel I am also sharing that
with my baby, silently explaining to him or her that the home birth was not
meant to be. Or maybe it’s my baby who
is silently explaining that to me. I’ve
heard it said that the baby chooses how they enter this world – whether it’s
though a natural, vaginal birth or via induction or C-Section – it doesn’t
always necessarily mean that baby decides to initiate natural labour. Perhaps this is how the baby is choosing to
come to us. I will be going into the
hospital Friday night for an induction. I needed to make that decision in order to move on with this process.
I actually just took a break from writing and came across
an article online about a woman struggling with fertility. Talk about a little perspective – we are
lucky and blessed to have this child and this child is lucky and blessed to
have us. Does anything else really
matter?
Of course not.
