Monthly Archives: August 2011

On Las Drogas

They put me on the Pitocin drip, it’s been HOURS, but it’s because they are giving me a slow dose, and ramping things up a little at a time.  The contractions are painful, but not so bad that I can’t stand it, which is good.  They remind me of my cramps when it was time for my period, but I can’t imagine what it will be like once they really kick in.

So far I have gone walking around the “loop” while it kicks in.

Update:

So it’s been months later, but I wanted to add what happened while I was on Las Drogas.  I ended up walking around the loop for what felt like a million years, and people would stare at me because I had the IV attached and I’m wearing a doofy gown.  My mom walked with me for a while and that helped, and it was funny because every time I walked by, Gus’ parents would check in on me.  I did have a few problems because an alarm went off while I was walking, evidently the battery was dead and the instruments were freaking out.

The baby kept moving so after a while, my nurse Kathy had me sit in the room because the baby wasn’t cooperating, she kept moving around and wouldn’t let the monitor, well, monitor her.  Already a troublemaker!  Kathy was very patient, but she ended up spending her whole shift chasing after the baby, moving the equipment on me so they could make sure she was doing okay.  In the end, when the next nurse came on shift, they didn’t want to deal with her so they popped in a monitor through my cervix and stuck it on her.  I imagined it as one of those suction darts with a lead on it, attached to her head, which is really funny mental image to have when you are in the middle of contractions.

I know, I have an overactive imagination.

Baby on the way

All weekend we have been trying to see if we can naturally induce the little one.  Nothing was really working.  We tried raspberry leaf tea, walking, stairs, sexy times, acupuncture massage, even took some milk of magnesia to get things going.  I’d get contractions every 1/2 hour or so, then they’d fade away.  Eventually I started losing my mucus plug, which was on Saturday and Sunday.

Sunday was pretty slow because I was tired from taking a hugely long walk, so I didn’t have any contractions, practically.  Then Monday came and I was starting to get them again, probably because I rested.  So this morning they called and let me know it was time to get induced, but we weren’t ready and didn’t get there until 10:30 a.m.  They hooked me up and then monitored the baby for what felt like a million years.

There was drama though, we found out we could have an OB do the delivery instead of the resident that I was working with (and didn’t particularly care for).  So Gus had to handle that mess, but we got it sorted out.  It was a little stressful because we didn’t want to screw over the resident, but at the same time, we wanted to have a kickass experience if possible.

Gus is bugging me to go walk, so we’ll go for now.  I’ll update later.