Clark's Birth Story: Check In through Pitocin Time

i was scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 7:30am on tuesday october 4th for an induction of labor due to the fact that i was past my due date and my baby was suspected of being large for his gestational age. husband and i got up early that day, he took the foster kids to day care, we left elise with relatives, and then we went to the labor and delivery section of our hospital.

once we arrived and filled out hospital check-in paperwork, my assigned nurse came and asked if we had some papers that my obgyn's office had given me weeks earlier-- a record of my pregnancy, with various test results and stuff like that. we forgot to bring the papers with us. for some reason, my scared and stressed out brain saw this oversight as my first failing in the attempt to have a positive birthing experience. maybe it was even a bad omen. so silly, but i kept thinking "crap, i've already screwed this up." of course, it was all no big deal. my obgyn's office faxed over another copy of the papers and that was that. i was just worried about how the day would go and i was disappointed that it got off to a very-slightly-less-than-smooth start.

eventually we were brought back to my labor and delivery room. i was given a gown to change into, the nurses strapped monitors around my belly (one monitored my contractions, the other monitored the baby's heart), i answered a million questions (anyone in your family prone to seizures? when was your last bowel movement?), and then my i.v. was inserted.

i've had very little luck with i.v.'s. with elise, i had two i.v.'s infiltrate and leak fluid into the tissue around my vein-- super painful. i refused to let them insert a 3rd i.v. Then this time, despite the fact that the nurse seemed to do a really good job of inserting the i.v. and was very thoughtful about the placement, i wound up with a huge purple, yellow, and green bruise. oh well. just one of the downsides to childbirth for me, i guess.

once my midwife arrived in my room she did an exam. i was still 4 cm dilated, about 70 percent effaced, and the baby's head was at station negative 2. i asked if we could just break my water and see if that would get labor going, but since clark's head was still pretty high up in my pelvis she decided we should start with the pitocin. i was a little disappointed with that, but i knew i'd probably end up taking pitocin one way or another, so i got over it pretty quickly.

they started the pitocin around 9am. i guess that would be the official start of my labor.