Nine months officially came to an end last Monday.
We went to the hospital Sunday, September 2 at 5:30pm. We went to the birthing unit as directed by the OB, confused the people at the desk and were sent over to Postpartum where they apparently do inductions. Oh well, I did manage to make people laugh by saying, "I'm not in labout but my doctor would like me to be."
I was admitted and subjected to and yet another non-stress test. I comforted myself by remembering that there wouldn't be many more of them left. The Jelly wasn't moving so we decided to go the popsicle route to see if the cold and sweet combo would get it moving. About three minutes after I finished the popsicle (grape - double) dinner showed up.
We tried not to lose faith in the hospital's general intelligence.
I mean, if you're going to serve carbs, maybe we don't need the popsicle to get squirt moving.
Anyhoo, at 7:00pm that night I became a patient and my modesty was tossed neatly out the window with the first in a series of internal exams. The exam showed the cervix was still firmly planted somewhere around my tonsils and wasn't showing any signs of coming down any time soon on its own. So in went the cervidil.
(for the uneducated, cervidil is a gel that aids in softening the cervix)
This was an altogether horrible experience.
TMI ALERT!
Cervidil comes in a very small suppository format. It looks like a teeny tiny tampon attached to a REALLY LONG ribbon where the string would ordinarily be. This makes sense. The suppository needs to be taken out (like a tampon) and since it's WAY higher up than the usual temporary stuff you put in that particular location, the pull-string needs to be longer.
WAY LONGER.
And it's not a thin string like one would hope. It's actually quite a wide net-like ribbon. The end of which needs to be tucked in to avoid being accidentally pulled out. Unfortunately the end often gets "stuck" on the glove of whoever is placing it - so it takes a few tries.
So fun was had by all. I was also informed that the primary negative side effect (that doesn't usually happen) that my medical team was worried about is that cervidil can cause extreme uterine contractions which in my case meant that the baby would be unable to handle it and I'd be having a C-Section. I said, "okay." Which meant, "well, I'm at the hospital, I can't think of a better place to have that happen."
Anyhoo, after that greatly enjoyable experience I was hooked back up to the monitors for a 2 hour non-stress test.
At 9:00ish a lovely woman came in and took all the monitors off. We love her.
20 minutes later Dad went home to sleep in a real bed (grr) and I had a snack, took some inuslin (under a nurse's written guidance, not visual - I love her.) tried to prepare for sleep in an actually very comfy bed. But I woke up every hour to go to the bathroom because I was still pregnant.
Dad was back by the next morning at 7:30.
Before that I was up at 6:00 to growl about the turkey tv dinner I'd been given the night before (Jelly still wouldn't let me properly digest things).
At 6:30 my vitals were checked. Temperature normal, BP elevated - oh really? I can't imagine why my blood pressure might be elevated... Certainly nothing to be excited about.
I was able to squeeze in a shower before breakfast and a glucose test (their machine) were ordered. I also took some insulin before breakfast - the last injection I would take in the hospital. I explained to the new nurse that I was on a slide scale and would need to decide how much of breakfast I would be able to eat before I knew how much insulin to take. So while I was trying very hard to count carbs on this VERY exciting morning I had to contend with an impatient nurse (who was probably very overworked, I don't blame her) saying, "how much are you going to take? How much are you going to take?" I finally said, "I have to count the carbs first. I don't know how much I'm going to use until I know how much I'm going to eat. Give me just a second." And she promptly shut up and let me do some basic addition. I went with the usual 18 units knowing that this wouldn't be a problem later in the day. I figured I might go a little low but not terribly and later in the day my sugars would only rise so it wasn't a huge issue. Besides, if all else failed, someone would be able to get me some dextrose - provided they all remembered I was diabetic. Yes, once again I had to explain to EVERY new face that I was gestational diabetic and that my Endocrinologist had said I would have my sugars checked every two hours during labour but if they had new instructions then I wasn't worried.
At 8:45 we were transferred to the birthing unit.
See Part II for the labour section.
No comments:
Post a Comment