Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Unexpected Pitocin Experience

The pitocin has been raised six times and....
still feeling good!
I'm hanging out on the birthing ball again, watching as the monitor tells me that I'm having crazy, constant contractions.  The pitocin has been raised five or six times now and has definitely kicked in.  Things are rolling right along.  And I'm a little bit shocked... because apparently I was pretty skeptical about whether or not my Hypnobabies program would actually work when I was in labor.  It wasn't that I was skeptical of the program itself.  It was more that I was skeptical of my five week dash to complete the program and then my ability to actually use it while I was in labor.

Added to that was my fear of pitocin.  I've had it before.  It's nasty stuff.  I remember it from my labor with Sadie and would wince when it came up in conversation with any of the doctors.  But when the formerly consistent contractions came to a stop this morning I knew that my chances of a VBA2C hinged on getting things started, so I reluctantly agreed (after timing my own contractions while pacing the halls and realizing that they just weren't starting again...).  After all, now that my water has broken (if you missed the post, it broke on its own, without any help!  Yay for that!), it's not like they'll be sending me home.  And the threat of a c-section if nothing happens is... well... it's definitely here.

So the pitocin drip began and I braced myself for the worst.  The contractions picked up a bit, but were virtually painless.  There was more pitocin and more contractions and the cycles continued.  The contractions are around three minutes apart now.  They're around a minute long.  They feel incredibly intense. There's pressure and an ache.  But it's certainly bearable.  And more than that I feel really happy every time I have a contraction, which is a hypnobabies suggestion that I was totally skeptical of originally, but which seems to be set into my subconscious after listening to the tracts many, many times.  And that happy feeling is during the contraction, which is really, really strange.

I know we aren't guaranteed smooth sailing from here, but I'm cautiously optimistic.  I just saw in the nurses report on the computer as she typed it in that I'm making good progress...

And that's the latest update!  Could it be that I'm actually not going to have a birth horror story this forth time around?  I'm cautiously optimistic!

7 comments:

  1. I am praying for you and the baby for a safe and (basically) less painful birth.

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  2. I've been praying for you! I am glad things are going well so far and hope they continue to go well! Hypnobabies sounds amazing; I'm going to have to try it!

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  3. I'm praying for you. I can't wait to see pictures of you holding sweet baby Patrick in your arms. I'm so happy the hypnobabies thing is working for you. I really believe that if you approach labor with the mentality that it's not going to be a painful ordeal that you'll fare much better.

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  4. I don't know if this will be helpful to you or not, but I wanted to share.
    Even with pitocin my labors always slowed down around 5-7cm. I would finally agree to an epidural.(I didn't need it for the pain, my dr said it would help move the labor along) In each of my 4 pregnancies i delivered within an hour and a half of the epidural. I don't know why it worked but it did.
    I'm praying for you.

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  5. This is great news! Another Hail Mary for you and baby Patrick!

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  6. Hello...I'm totally stalking your blog today! I hope that everything is going well, prayers for you!

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