Memories (installment 16)

The duplex we moved into was in town, on a quiet little street. It was a cute little place, two bedrooms, one bath, with beautiful hardwood floors. I loved living there. We moved in when our oldest was about 18 months old.



While we lived there, I became pregnant with our second child. During the pregnancy, we cut off communications with my parents. I was also not working, and we were attempting to live on the income that Jason could make. Jason started adding jobs, to try to bring in more income. At one point, he was working one full-time job and 2 part-time jobs. That meant that he was not home very much.



With this second pregnancy, I was DETERMINED to not have another C-section. I REALLY wanted to have a home birth, but Jason was unwilling. We had met with a midwife, and she suggested that if we decided against the homebirth, we might be interested in having a doula assist with the birth at the hospital. This midwife had a young girl apprenticing under her who was really looking for the experience of just BEING there for births. She came out to our house several times, and helped me practice some relaxation techniques...oh, and she gave the BEST massages... I also spent a lot of time at the library, reading up on how to have the birth that I really wanted to have.



The pregnancy itself was very uneventful. So much so that I just stayed pregnant forever....or so it seemed. At around 40 weeks, everything looked fine, and we had no worries. At 42 weeks, the midwife/doctor group I was seeing was getting a little concerned. They wanted to up the number of observations they were doing of me....we started to have weekly non-stress tests and ultrasounds. The next week, they upped it again, to every two days. Everything still looked good.

During all of this, Jason was DETERMINED that he was going to help me go into labor. We went out to eat...for Mexican food...a LOT. We went for LONG walks at the beautiful park in downtown Columbia. We went for bumpy rides. I took castor oil-orange juice cocktails (REALLY, really gross!). Obviously, none of that worked! At about 22 days late, at my Monday morning ultrasound and non-stress test, the powers-that-be decided that the placenta was starting to look "old" and that we needed to go ahead with an induction.



We went straight from the doctor's office over to the hospital for the insertion of a prosteglandin gel to ripen the cervix. We were there until about lunch time, and headed home to pack our bags for the next day.



The next morning, we dropped the oldest off with Jason's parents and headed to the hospital...VERY early. The pitocin drip was started almost immediately, and things were going along rather nicely. The midwife apprentice was able to be there for me that day, and was a huge help. Jason was bored and sat around watching sports on TV all day. Sometime around 4:00 pm, the midwife came in and gave me my options. Option #1 was staying on the pitocin, unable to eat or sleep much, with the threat of a C-section the next morning. Option #2 was to get off of the pitocin for the night, have some supper and get some sleep, and start back on it the next morning. We went with Option #2. I was only at 4 cm.



After a very uneventful night of supper and sleep, I was again hooked back to the pitocin and got down to the work of having a baby. The apprentice had to go back to work on Day 2, so Jason and I were on our own. Sometime around noon, the midwife told me that the doctors in the group were getting concerned about the length of the labor, and were threatening me with a C-section if the baby didn't arrive by 4:00 pm. ACK!!! NOT A C-SECTION!!! Okay, back to laboring. Finally, Jonathan Charles checked in at about 4:16 pm at 9 pounds, 3 ounces....NOT a C-section...but a small episiotomy. He was 24 days late, but a big, healthy boy.




We headed back home 2 days later, a family of four.