The First Part Of The Story

Monday night I start to notice I'm finally having regular contractions starting around 9pm. At midnight they are still going although they weren't really getting any stronger. After a couple more hours we decide to go ahead and call my midwife. Lorren is the one on call, and she tells us to come in. We get there and I spend a couple of hours in the tub eventually I realize this is not going like it should. I just don't feel like I'm getting any closer so I have my midwife check me. I'm only 1cm dilated so we decide to go home. I have never before had contractions that didn't do anything so I'm very frustrated at this point. We go home and go to bed I try to sleep even thought the contractions are still coming I get about two hours of sleep, but keep waking up every couple of minutes because of contractions. By about noon on Tuesday I realize the contractions are completely gone. So we sit around and wait for my regularly schedule midwife appointment later that night.



I go in for my appointment with Chris at 6:30. At this point I'm 7 days past my due date, and even more frustrated than I was before my round of contractions. We talk about the options she says she is willing to do what she can to try and help things along. She also says medical induction is an option and it is my call, she feels we should go home and get a good nights sleep and call her in the morning. I call her Wednesday morning and tell her I'm willing to try whatever she suggests, but give her a firm date of Friday for my induction I want it scheduled I'm not waiting through another weekend. We meet her at the birth center around 12:30 and she sweeps my membranes. This is a fairly common technique where they try and loosen the bag of waters from the cervix in an attempt to "get things started". She then give me some herbs with the instruction to take them every 15 minutes for one hour. We go and run some errands while watching the clock so I can take the herbs. Let me just say they are the worst tasting things I have EVER had. Dare says one of them smells like kerosene and dirty gym socks. I think it tastes worse. We meet Chris at the birth center again at 5 so she can sweep my membranes again. On the car ride home I start having contractions again. This time they are more painful, but short so we go home and watch a movie. After a couple of hours I decide to call Chris, and we head into the birth center again. I have never had long labors before so everyone including myself is a little on edge so she tells me to go ahead and come in. This time instead of wasting a whole bunch of time she checks me right away and says I'm 2+ centimeters, and the contractions aren't doing anything. She sends me home with the instructions to take a warm bath, and drink a glass of wine. Hopefully this will allow me to get some sleep. She said to call her around 8am. I go home take a bath and get a terrible night of sleep again waking up every few minutes with contractions. To be continued.........