Induction Day - Part #1

Our alarms went off at 2 am Tuesday morning. We showered, got dressed and did a few things around the house. Jason made our bed and we tripled checked that we had everything loaded into the car (some of it had been loaded since the weekend before when we made the trip to Lexington, KY for the wedding). Jason even watered the flowers on the porch and we locked down the house to be gone for a couple of days.

I wasn’t feeling McDonalds that morning. Instead we stopped at the Marathon by McDonalds. Jason grabbed us a bag of chocolate donuts, me a milk and himself a Mountain Dew. We got to the hospital a little after 3:30 and we laughed when we realized just how much we had packed. But, we rocked our million bags.

We headed in through the emergency room (since the main doors were locked) and stopped at the desk. I knew where we were to report (3^rd floor to Labor & Delivery), but it felt weird to just walk by the lady sitting there. So, we stopped and asked for L&D. She asked if my water had broke. No, we were there for a scheduled induction. She gave us a map and we were on our way.

Man, she was right. It was a long walk. Once we made it to the main lobby; we knew where we were at. Once on the third floor, Jason waited in the waiting room and I checked in. Check-in went fast since they had all updated information (required pre-registration and our 35 weekish visit to L&D). The girl working did ask me to sign a special release form to search for medical records. I signed and it came up with our Milwaukee, WI ER and hospital stay information. She was surprised since she thought she had just searched for Cincinnati, but she printed them off anyway.

She put my band on my arm and called back to let them know that we were there. She said that they would call back to let me know where to go and they did pretty much immediately. I was to report back to room 12, alone. I went and told Jason and headed back (I noticed that the room was in the other hallway compared to when we were there with TT).

I was greeted at the room door by a nurse. She said “you must be my induction!” It was right around 4 am when I got back to the room. The room was huge. I sat down what I was carrying and she got to it. I was to have the gown on (only) and provide a urine sample. I headed to the restroom (which was AMAZING… come to find out later in the day that it was the show room for the hospital when they updated the rooms a few years ago (after TT’s birth)). I got the gown on, used the restroom, flushed and then realized I didn’t pee in the cup. I laughed. I washed my hands and went and sat on the bed.

When she returned, another nurse was with her. I told them of my mistake and they said that they would need a sample at some point for the required drug testing and if not the baby would be drug tested. I felt like they were a little mad. Maybe it was just me feeling bad. Maybe it was too early in the AM. But, after a few minutes of all of us talking and getting to know one another, we all laughed about it. They asked me a few questions (abuse, etc…) and called Jason back to the room. I immediately told him of my mishap and he made a joke about me being a teacher.

One nurse asked medical history questions and the other started my IV. I told her from the start that I was sometimes a hard stick. She looked on my left arm since I am right-handed, but didn’t see anything that she liked. She then looked at my right and found a curvy vein on the top of my hand. It hurt from the get go. It hurt putting it in and it hurt the entire time it was in, but I’ve had them hurt before. I didn’t want to complain about a simple IV when shortly I would be feeling contractions. Once it was in and started, my antibiotic for GBS+ was also started. I was told that a resident would be in to check me, break my water and then pitocin would be started. Wow, things were getting crazy quick. I had wanted to walk like we did with TT. With her, we started pitocin (for several rounds) and then they broke my water. We even walked for a while after that. She didn’t say no, but made it seem like things would be progressing too quickly (plus, ‘water’ would be every).

Shortly after, a girl resident came in. After introductions, she checked me. I was 4 cm (hmm… no wonder I didn’t feel good yesterday), 60% effaced (I had been for the last 2 weeks), -2 station (he had been higher) and mid (that was also a change). She then broke my water around 4:40 am and pitocin was immediately started at 4:42 am. Every 30 minutes the nurse came back in to increase the picotin amount. I was also able to get up and go to the bathroom a couple of times. During the first trip, I was able to provide the urine sample.  With each increase I started feeling contractions more and more.