The Waiting Game (Warning: LONG post)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Surprised to see that I (Heidi) am blogging? Well, since my now overdue pregnant body has decided to take the day off from regular labor (it IS a holiday), I've decided to take the free time I have to fill you in on all that's happened the last 24+ hours...(please note: I'm sparing you some of the not so pleasant details and using pregnancy language to describe it. For the truly curious, just google words you don't know and you'll find out.)

The story begins at 12:30am December 24th. Since I had officially reached my due date, there are some things you can try to start getting labor going. One of them worked, and I started having some contractions and "show." Yay! we thought. Maybe this could be the day! The contractions definitely had a beginning, peak, and end, and they were lasting about 45-60 sec. coming every 7 minutes or so. Much of the pain started in my abdomen and moved to my tailbone - a sure sign that I'll be having back labor. Joe told me to lay in bed and try to sleep, but it didn't work so well. The contractions were manageable laying in bed, but they kept me awake. Plus, I was just curious to see how "serious" these contractions were.

3:15AM: I feel a gush of fluid come out that I can't seem to stop. Luckily I was prepared for this, so the bed sheets were spared. I got up, checked the fluid (clear with no smell), and thought that my water broke. We were quite excited at this point, because we thought labor was definitely going to happen seriously within the next 24 hours or so. (FYI: When your water breaks, you're generally "on the clock" in that after 24 hrs, the risk of infection to the baby goes up. Most hospitals will induce after 24 hours; my midwife practice takes a more conservative approach in letting labor start on its own even after 24 hrs, but gives us the choice if we want to induce.) I called my doula, but got her voicemail, so I called the on-call midwife at the hospital and told her what happened. She told me to go back to bed, and if labor intensified to contractions every 5 minutes for an hour, to call back. I went back to bed, with the contractions still coming every 7 minutes or so. They seemed to intensify a bit...and continued until 6:30am.

7:45AM: I'm woken up by Susan, my doula, calling me on the cell phone. Somehow, I had fallen asleep for more than an hour, which totally threw me off. How could I have slept through my contractions? I thought. I talked to Susan about what happened during the night, and as we chatted, I realized that my contractions had mysteriously slowed down and was coming to a stop. As I got up and moved around that morning, I had very few contractions at all, most of them painless. Joe and I decided to go for a long walk to Kits Beach after breakfast, during which I only had 3-4 contractions. Things didn't seem to add up, seeing that my water broke during the night (or so we thought). I had lunch back at home and decided to take a nap. Lena, the on-call midwife at the hospital, called to check-up on me and we chatted about everything that happened during the night. Because she wasn't busy at the hospital, so told me to come in so she could examine me and run some tests to see if my water actually did break. The results would determine the next steps we would take.

3:00PM: We arrive at BC Women's Hospital. I'm hooked up to monitors, the fetal heart rate is good, and I suddenly go back to having contractions about 7 minutes apart (seems the baby knew where s/he was!). Lena does 2 tests to see if my water broke. Both come back negative. You know what that means? If your water hasn't broken, it means you've experienced a case of incontinence...the fancy way of saying that I totally peed myself. Yeah, that's right. I'm 27 years old and a bed wetter. Luckily, I have a good sense of humor (which is why I'm even telling you all this). I found out that peeing yourself is actually quite common at this stage -- especially with my contractions, and all it takes is for the baby to put some extra pressure on my bladder and - BAM - out it comes. It's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between the two fluids (as in my case), so I'm thankful that Lena had me come in to check.

So, where did that leave us? Well, there was both a good and bad side to this news:

The good side: I'm not "on the clock" and there's no need to do vast medical intervention if my contractions don't pick-up right away.

The bad side: I'm not "on the clock", meaning, it's not guaranteed that the baby would come tonight or even Christmas day. I'm still in early labor, which could last DAYS or even a WEEK before this baby actually comes. We just have to sit and wait for contractions to pick up again.

But before we left the hospital, Lena did a membrane sweep and found that my cervix is effaced and that I am already 2 cm dilated. Good news! Just by doing the sweep, Lena told me she probably dilated me to 3cm, and the sweep (which I've been told is VERY uncomfortable and painful) was only slightly uncomfortable. Lena told me that the sweep could get labor started, or it could just cause nagging contractions that don't really dilate my cervix. I was willing to take the risk. Lena thought that based on what was happening to my body, she wouldn't be surprised if the baby could come that night or in the next few days. That gave us a bit more hope, since the news of my bed wetting was very anti-climactic.

5:00PM: I take Lena's advice to get some rest at home. So I take some Gravol and head to bed. But the contractions pick up again. They occur anywhere between 7 -10 minutes apart, and last for 45-90 seconds. Definitely painful in my back, so I find myself increasing the level on my TENS machine and do a lot of standing and rocking during each contraction. I rest between contractions, but I don't ever recall falling asleep between them (Joe says I was out and snoring). I'm starting to think that things may be picking up again and this baby will come on Christmas!

8:30PM: I try to stay laying down during my contractions, and find that I'm able to manage through them. I fall asleep until Susan calls, and I fill her in on what's happening. The contractions have slowed down quite a bit with very little pain. She tells me that because the baby is not putting pressure on my cervix, the contractions are weaker. She gives me two options, essentially:

1) Take walks, stay active and vertical in an effort to get contractions to pick up, with the hope that I move into more active labor (though not at all guaranteed).

2) Go to bed, since I've been up all day and only had 1.5 hours of sleep plus a few cat naps. Sleep = greater stores of energy for when real labor hits.

Though we would have loved to choose option #1 and stay up through the night (who wouldn't want a baby sooner than later?), we thought option #2 was the wiser choice. I'm no good laboring without sleep, and I want to be as focused and rested for when the time does come.

10:15PM: We head to bed, and apart from some menstrual-like cramping, a few contractions, and a few normal trips to the bathroom, I wake up at 8am with a good 9 or so hours of sleep. Hooray for the sleep (my doula was equally ecstatic!)...but boo because it meant my contractions had stopped...again.

8AM, Dec. 25th: We get up, have breakfast, and take a walk to see if my contractions pick-up again. I only have a few contractions, and they aren't painful. We begin to think that maybe this baby isn't coming on Christmas Day after all. I call my new doula (Aimee - she's covering Susan on Christmas Day) and give her the latest update. She told me that it's very normal for labor to start and stop several times before the real labor begins, but she praised our choice to get sleep and rest. And we found out that walking doesn't start labor -- it only helps once I'm in labor.

The rest of today: I've been taking it easy all day, enjoying a morning of opening presents with Joe and my parents, eating a lovely turkey dinner provided by my mom (a real gem!), and now we're about to call my sister, who's birthday falls on Christmas (K - you may not have to share your b-day with Jesus AND a niece/nephew now! ;). Today I've had sporadic contractions, some painful, others not. To be honest, there is a sense of disappointment. Our hopes have gotten up twice now with regular contractions, only to have them end. But instead of despairing in what what we don't have, we've chosen to play the waiting game...because some gifts are so precious that they are worth waiting for -- and waiting for them to come at just the right time.

We love you all and wish you a very joyous day as we remember that the greatest gift God gave to the world came in the form of a baby. Thank you for your love, support, prayers, and words of encouragement along the way so far. We'll keep you posted!