STILL pregnant

Well, I'm home today. AND I'm still pregnant. :(

Wednesday morning at midnight we went in to Labor and Delivery. I got the cervadil, and about three hours of broken sleep while they kept coming in to readjust the external monitors to keep track of my VERY active baby. By real 'morning' I had dialated to 1cm and was up to 70% effaced.

We kept this up, and got up to having contractions every 3-5 minutes, until being rechecked around 1:30pm. I was up to 1cm and 75%, so I had effaced a little more. I was hooked up to the Pitocin drip at 2pm. We increased the pitocin every 15 minutes until my contractions were 2 minutes apart. They were definitely stronger, but between Tom, my doula, and the wonderfully accommodating nurse we had, I was able to breathe and move a bit through them and didn't need any pain medications.

We kept this up until 6:30pm. The pitocin can only go up to 22 and I was already at a 17. Tom and I were in the middle of vigorously swaying our hips side to side to Abba on the cd player when the doctor got there. :) I was checked again. Still 1cm, but a 'stretchy 1' and 75% and the baby was not coming down to dilate me more. We talked about our options and here's the plan...

I was taken off the pitocin and kept for an hour or two while my contractions slowed to every 5 minutes. Then I came home Wednesday night around 9pm. Orders are to rest, eat, relax. I might go into spontaneous labor on my own after the agressive exams we did, but if not I go in Friday morning at 8am and we start on the pitocin right away. Labor through that all day. By 4-5pm he'll know whether the baby is dropping and I can try a natural delivery or if the baby is not dropping we do a cesearean. One way or another, this baby is born by Friday! He's worried about the baby's size, and we're not sure if the baby just wasn't ready to move down today yet, or if his head is just too big to engage. Guess we'll find out Friday!

He did make a point to say that it was definitely not a waste of time to go in Wednesday. We have gotten the cervix a lot more favorable, and if the baby will just drop he'll probably dilate me quickly. Every exam he also stripped the membranes vigorously so that might help things along even before Friday.

So here I sit this morning in my living room. I slept a good 10 hours last night, but had to finally get up from just being really uncomfortable. I'm a bit sore in the legs and left arm. Not sure if that's leftover from the pitocin or just from working so hard yesterday though. I think I managed all the contractions well, and I'm happy about that. I just hope that "productive" contractions don't hurt a ton more. If they stay this way up until transition then I really think I can do this unmedicated (unless a cesearean is necessary of course). Again though, we'll find out soon! Keep tuned in and my next update will hopefully be all about the birth and the baby!