I have never gone into labor on my own. For all five of my previous births I have always had an induction, some were for medical reasons, others for convenience. Three of my babies were born at about my due date, one was two weeks early (due to pre-eclamptia) and one was a week past. For this baby, my sixth, I decided that I really wanted to go into labor on my own. After reading and researching I had decided that letting my body go into labor when baby is ready was the best choice for me and my newest addition. Talking it over with my doctor (who has the heart of a midwife, really) he was more than happy to let me go two weeks past “the date” and is willing to help me deliver any way that I want to, excepting a homebirth.
So there I was happy to let nature do her thing, to wait until baby was ready, to happily gestate into week 42 if I had to. Or was I? When week 37 hit was I going strong ready to have this baby, ready to let my body do its thing, and more than willing to try every folk remedy, wives tale and rumor out there to get baby here as soon as possible. Every little twinge from my uterus made me stop, and if there were two twinges I was ready to time my “contractions”. Was this it? Would I know? Would I go early? Should I call Dadzoo, my doula, my Mom? What should I try first to speed up these contractions, drink 2 gallons of raspberry tea instead of one? Take extra Primrose oil? Castor oil? Run the stairs? Meditate on a flower opening? Only to have all my excitement and hopes dashed in an hour or so when no more contractions came.
What was I doing wrong, why wouldn’t baby come? I was ready, the house cleaned, closets de-junked, all necessary items washed, sewn, pressed and put away all awaiting the arrival of my baby. My freezer is full, the nursery painted and decorated, children taken care of, laundry done. I was practicing relaxation, eating well, resting as much as I could, thinking positive thoughts, loving my man, reading all the birthing books and blogs I could. I am ready, really ready, where is she?
Then came Monday night. That evening I started to contract, sporadically at first, then it settled into a nice pattern of 10 minutes apart. They weren’t uncomfortable, but enough that I noticed them. Figuring that I should sleep while I could I went to bed, only to be woken up at about 3:30 am with some hard contractions about 3 or 4 minutes apart. I lay in bed for about two hours, timing and contracting, they were very consistent, 3 to 4 minutes apart, but weren’t particularly hard, however they did command my attention. Was this it? It had to be, right? Remember, I don’t know what it feels like to go into labor on my own, in this aspect I feel like a first time mom. At about 5:30 am I got up, cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, checked my bags and walked the hall waiting for Dadzoo to wake up. When he woke up, I told him I was pretty sure I was in labor, could he work from home today in case? He was more than happy to do so and I continued to walk the hall, contracting, getting more and more excited. This HAD to be it!
About 8:00, I noticed that the contractions I had been timing for about 4 hours started to be less noticeable, and were stretching to 5 or 6 minutes apart and I was completely exhausted. I lay down for a little bit, fell to sleep and they stopped completely. At 9:30 I got up and got ready, I had a doctor appointment that morning and I was hoping that I had dilated a little bit, knowing that early labor will sometimes stop and start and maybe I was just so tired that my body decided to give me a little rest….right….? Dadzoo came with me to the appointment, and while I had a few more contractions in the car, nothing really started up. My doctor examined me and I hadn’t changed, I am (was) still dialated to a “1” like I had been for the past two weeks and soft. Here I am, 39 weeks pregnant, with my SIXTH baby and only dialated to a ONE!
I. Was. Crushed.
My doctor was kind. Dadzoo was disappointed. I wondered what I had been doing wrong and what is wrong with my cervix!
Dadzoo drove me home and when we got there I went right to bed, so very mad. Luckily Dadzoo could work from home that day, he took care of everything, while I holed up in the bedroom and licked my wounds, wallowed in the discouragement and did a little thinking and praying.
The whole appeal of letting my labor start of naturally, and laboring unmedicated wasn’t something I came up with lightly. It isn’t some romantic ideal, an endurance competition or bragging rights. I really feel that it is best for my baby and for my body. In the frantic last weeks of my pregnancy I had been forgetting something very important. It is the idea of surrendering myself, my control, my body to something that is bigger than myself. This world is all about schedules, timing, fast quick and easy, having what we want NOW, and being in complete control all the time no matter what. Pregnancy and child birth, in its natural form is none of those things. From the first moments of conception we give ourselves over to this tiny little soul that grows within our body. We give ourselves over to morning sickness, fatigue, sore backs, pelvises and breasts all for the sake of a child, our child, our Heavenly Father’s child. I understood that about pregnancy, but I wasn’t treating the idea of birth in the same light. Birth happens slowly, sometimes over the course of weeks, we slowly open ourselves, we give up control of our body and its functions, we surrender to the great forces of nature and its timing, not ours.
So while I am not giving up completely on the old folk remedies, and I don’t condemn anyone for choosing an induction, for me and this baby I am learning a great life lesson.
That sometimes you just need to surrender.
made me cry. nice message.
Good Luck! 🙂 I had that journey with my first, I still don’t know what it is to go into labor. and I have come to terms with it, but I remember the trying everything and waiting it out to 42 weeks. I wish you better luck than I had, that you can have the experience you are wishing for! 🙂
I do have in induction date at the end of the month, I figure that if I don’t go into labor on my own it is just another way I need to learn to let go and not be in control of everything 😉
Though I’ve only had one pregnancy prior to this one – it too was induced just after due date (due to worries baby would be too big to come w/o Csec if we waited)…I would really like this one to come naturally too. Good luck to you Aimee!
Hope everything goes well! I wonder too what it’s like to time contractions and get ready for labor. My water just broke so we went to the hospital, but nothing really happened for 6 hours and I ended up getting pitocin and that got everything going so fast! I think we all have marvelous birth plans ready, but when it comes down to it, as long as we have the baby, the way they got here seems less important.
Having gone two weeks over due, and my doctor would not induce me until I was two weeks over due, I absolutely would not recommend it. I, till this day, wish the doctor would have listened to my pleas to induce me. I did have the baby, labor started, “naturally” and bless her heart she was born on Labor Day. My doctor was not on call that night, but I insisted with the nurse that if I had to be there then so did he. She called my doctor, he did come in and deliver the baby. He also told my daughter years later, when she was an adult, that he never made anyone else do that after her birth. To me being two weeks over due was so traumatic that to this day I tear up to think about it. MORE POWER TO YOU, BUT I DO NO ENVY YOU ONE BIT!
Jan, I was willing to go 2 weeks over due with my first before being induced. She naturally came 10 days after. The doc kept begging ME to go sooner but i stuck to my guns. By 10 days after the placenta was NOT healthy. Doc basically said it was dying and it didn’t smell very good, lol. TMI? I too was traumatized after my experience!
The idea isn’t so much whether or not medical intervention is good or bad, it has its place and each woman has her choice and should be respected no matter the choice. The idea is that in pregnancy as well as birth different things are going to happen, our plans are going to change and we might need to make adjustments and part of the growth that comes from it all is surrendering to the process whatever that is.
Oh, Aimee! Though I’ve never been overdue, and never had an induction, I do know the pain and frustration of those last few weeks. With me it was after the “false labor” (oh how I hate that term!) episode that I ended up in the hospital at 39 weeks only to be sent home b/c it fizzled out. I was in tears. Over the next few days I too learned a great lesson about the Lord’s timing. It was actually a good friend who told me about her experience with this, and getting a blessing from her husband that told her that the Lord was giving instructions to her unborn child and to be patient–that he would come when He was finished. That really helped me realize that if my baby was getting instructions before coming to our family, I for sure could wait! I’m sure it was better than any instructions I could (and will) ever give her! Your post was so beautifully put. It’s certainly a sacrifice in every way. I continue to pray for you and your sweet little girl! <3
When I was having babies (35 to 20 years ago) inductions were rare. I happened to be a “fast cooker.” My seven kids were all born between 37 and 40 weeks gestation. But I had many friends who were “slow cookers.” I knew moms that had 5 or 6 kids and went 42 or even 43 weeks with every one. Each woman’s body is unique! Nature (read that a wise God) made each of us so! Creating human beings is not an assembly-line! You know what is right for you. Hold to that!
I bake ’em fast too, just like my mommy! Genevieve & I were just talking about this. She’s a slow cooker too. Must be a difference in oven temps. ;0)
a thought on slow cooking and fast cooking, I really think it has a lot to do with actual conception date, with my last I knew the exact day and that moved my due date back 2.5 weeks from the standard calculation, the general way to calculate dues dates doesn’t take into account Ovulation… I ovulate late and thus it is probable that when I was induced at “42 weeks” with my first it was actually 40 weeks. I am thoroughly frustrated by the assumption that all women ovulate in that “perfect” 7 day window, it has caused me a lot of grief in trying to get pregnant, I widened my range by 7 days on each side and still missed my ovulation date and so I was put on meds to ovulate… I finally just took it into my own hands and took test daily for 3 months to finally get my Remi. 🙂 I guess I wish my doctor would have suggested that even with my first, instead of jumping on meds assuming I wasn’t ovulating at all! sorry about that apparently it needed to get out! 🙂
I would have to agree with you Kirsten, 100%
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