Induction Day

I'm hanging out on a bed here on 15 Long, Room 1.

Tim is stretched out on a pull out bed next to me. We have some RadioParadise going on and we're on our respective electronic devices. Ada is at home with her grandparents. Pitocin started just a minute ago and there is some work being done to get my body to go into labor even though things appear to be locked down pretty tight. I'm only at 1 cm and the baby is quite high so I have a long way to go.

40w1d: For the record, I think this baby is going to be really big. 

It's discouraging really and so far from the way I wanted the process of welcoming my children to the world to go. I'm a bit of a hippie at heart and I believe in the incredible power and wisdom of the human body. When I went into labor with Ada I trusted that with a little help everything would happen exactly as it should. Overlooking a few minor snags I would say that it was a beautiful experience. Learning how capable and strong my body was, how determined and focused my mind could be was empowering. Though I did deliver in a hospital last time I labored at home for a long time and had minimal intervention. I liked it that way. If I could get my knows-a-little-too-much husband to agree I would have done a water birth at home with a doula. Nothing would please me more than letting this baby come when he was ready. 

Well, one thing would please me more - for my husband to be present at the birth of his son.




Since we're on a university-inflicted timeline and they're not flexible it's up to me to bend a little. And by "bend a little" I mean welcome the metamorphosis of a beautiful, natural experience into a medicalized, forced one. I feel very disengaged from this particular birth process and that bums me out. Nature was driving the process the first time around and my body was following the commands. It all felt very right. Maybe it wasn't very true but I at least felt like I had some control. That is not the case at all now as I'm handing it over to science. I am a scientist so one would be inclined to think that it wouldn't bother me but it does. It feels all wrong.




Breathing through these early contractions reminds me of giving birth to Ada and how long it took. My head-space was so different then. I keep trying to talk myself into it. I've done it before countless times: one more mile, one more hour of study, one more lap, one more page...so I keep thinking that one more contraction I can surely pull through. However, I suspect that I'll be quite passive and not so much the determined participant I was the first time around. I've already signed the consent forms for an epidural, you know, to save time later. For now, I just wait and hope that my body jumps in and does what it was meant to do, what it already knows how to do.

Hopefully I'll announce soon that mom and baby are well. Happy Induction Day to me!