WHEN BABY JUST DOESN’T WANT TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE
For as long as I can remember I would stubbornly say that my decision for the birth of my future baby was that I wanted a cesarian birth.
Why? My always supposedly logical answer was because I am not crazy enough to go through the pain of natural birth and have a watermelon split my lady parts.
Nothing and no one could talk me out of it. Until we actually became pregnant. One thing is to plan when it isn’t happening and another to plan your birth plan when you ARE pregnant. My husband had to sit me down and have a deep heart to heart and made me realize so much with three little words.
We were alone.
What do you mean alone? I have spoken about this once or actually twice. I lost my mother a few years ago, she was very young and I always knew I would miss her so much for this part of my life. One of my sisters lives far away in California and she has a family there, made up of several fur babies so I understand she can’t just come for weeks on end. She was just here for a week for my solo exhibit which meant a lot. My other sister lives here, more like over an hour away. Although she keeps offering herself to take time off to come to help me (mostly for her nephew) it’s not fair to take her away from her own son who has school.
So when hubby put this in my mind, it kept on repeat in my mind. We are alone in this, we are alone in this, we are alone in this… No way I could handle a csection recovery AND newborn and all that entails, which I have no idea what that is. I was there for the recovery of my sister and it was bad, but she had my mom to help with the baby. As in she got to sleep and my mom only woke her to breastfeed. I was there for my friend’s recovery and she could barely get out of bed without help or pain. Could I do this just with hubby and he only gets 7 days of paternity leave? What would I do alone?
The talk was had with my doctor and she assured me that if I wanted drugs I can ask for it for a vaginal birth. I talked it over with several mothers I know and asked them to be honest about the pain and recovery. They all said the same thing when the epidural kicked in NO PAIN. So then why was I going for a major surgery and getting cut open and have to recover from it, only to endure pain after the delivery? I was very misinformed, and obviously only thinking about my fear of pain.
NATURAL DELIVERY WAS THE PLAN
I was so excited. I made all the plans and my doctor helped me by giving me as much information and instructions on how to make this happen. She kept me on a strict diet to avoid gestational diabetes. When she thought I was getting a bit heavier she would remind me that if I let myself carried away baby could get to big and I may not be able to deliver naturally. Enough incentive for me.
I did everything I could. Deprived myself of sugar and didn’t eat for two like all the other pregnant women. My weight gain fluctuated between 4-6 and then 8 pounds towards the end of my second trimester, I gained more in my last trimester but I didn’t really care enough to check all the time anymore. I didn’t get gestational diabetes. Wooo hoo!!!
NO DILATION & NO CONTRACTIONS
I had no idea this could happen. I didn’t read about this, I had no clue. With all the activity I did during my pregnancy and how active I was, it scared me that I was going to have the baby early. I kept talking to my belly reminding the baby that he needed to stay in until after my solo art show. Never did I think that I wouldn’t start the dilation process any time soon.
Everyone kept looking at my belly saying it hadn’t dropped. Which I didn’t even know what that was supposed to look like. I have been having Braxton Hicks for some time, but those are nothing, not even painful. I’ve been wondering why I hadn’t felt anything. I know I’m crazy for wishing for pain.
THE WORD INDUCING
When we were approaching the last week of pregnancy at my weekly doctor’s appointment, her assistant talked to us about scheduling an induction at 41 weeks. I had never heard of this, nor did I think that it would be necessary. I was sure my water would break before that day. I didn’t even really read a lot about the inducing process.
WIVES TALES
Of course, everyone has an opinion when you’re pregnant. So I decided to let them give all their opinions now, this time to know what will make my labor start.
WALKING
This was the number one thing on everyone’s suggestion and many guaranteed it to work. I didn’t walk around that much during my pregnancy but that was because I was always so busy that I felt I had already been pushing myself too much. The last few weeks, however, we would go out and walk every day sometimes 3 times in one day.
CERTAIN FOODS
There were so many foods that were suggested to us by people we know and the internet. These, however, were the only ones I tried.
- SPICY FOODS: The baby pretty much liked spicy food so I didn’t see this changing anything. I kept at it though.
- PIZZA: I didn’t see why this would help, but I figured it was a big meal that caused labor. So I ate it and made sure it had another thing on the list, pineapple and spicy.
- PINEAPPLE: This is supposed to help soften the cervix.
- ORANGE JUICE: Well it’s more like a milk & orange juice concoction, I stuck to plain OJ.
- LABOR COOKIES: There are several recipes on Pinterest for these, pretty tasty.
- CAMOMILE TEA: It is a relaxer, so it should also relax your uterus.
CUDDLE TIME WITH YOUR SPOUSE
All I’m going to say is that this method was tried as well and did not work.
SQUATS
I read that squats were supposed to be great for inducing labor so I tried them several times a day. They are supposed to be great for vaginal delivery.
LAYING ON YOUR SIDE
I was told by several people and even nurses at the hospital that this would help. I have no idea why. I have been laying on my left side for so long since that is the only position I could sort of sleep in. Now I was laying on my side during the day instead of sitting.
I should lay on my side while eating a pineapple pizza, with a side of labor cookies and sipping on camomile tea…
BREAST STIMULATION
When we went to the breastfeeding classes they warned us not to touch your breasts too much. This could cause stimulation and could induce labor. During my research to induce labor naturally, this kept coming up. So yes I had my hands on my breasts a good chunk of the day, with no results.
OUTCOME
None of the suggested ways to induce labor worked. I was surprised because I truly believed in them. I figured mind over matter, I envisioned it. Nope, nothing. By now I had done my research for inducing labor and let me tell you it’s not a walk in the clouds and there is also no guarantee that it would work. So a few days ago, which is a few days away from the scheduled induction date, I called my doctor and told her it was not going to happen. I’m not going to go through that pain, forced contractions and might still be subjected to a c-section. I told my doctor that now I was ok with a scheduled c-section. It didn’t work that easy, they want to run tests and ultrasounds.
ADVICE
In my case, my cervix hasn’t ripened, I am not dilating and nothing I’m doing or did is going to change the outcome. If you do your research on inducing and you are ok with all that, more power to you. Be a trooper and wait on it to happen on its own or go for that cesarian birth. The best thing you can do, talk to your doctor about plan A, B, and C, just in case of the unexpected.
LET’S BE FRIENDS