The start at the hospital

On our way to the hospital I kept asking my husband if he was ready. He said we were as ready as we were going to be and if we had him that night we would be fine. I knew he was right.

We arrived at the hospital and went to the labor and delivery check in. I was very nervous which I knew was going to make my blood pressure higher or stay high so I was trying very hard to calm down. I was sent to the triage area where they connected me to the non stress test machine and a blood pressure cuff. My blood pressure would go up and down and at one point got to 170/96. The nurse joked that I was trying to stay and have a baby that night. I really wasn't I was trying to relax but I think at this point I was way too anxious, scared, excited, and nervous to calm down.

The hospital was very busy with women who were in active labor. I think this is why they kept me on the monitor from around 5pm until about 11:30 pm when they came in to tell us they plan. It was a resident who came in as the doctor was busy delivering babies. She said that she had spoken to the doctor and at this point they felt the best thing for me and the baby was to start inducing me. I was 38 weeks and 4 days. She then started to explain that they would be giving me magnesium sulfate to stop me from seizing due to my blood pressure being so high and that by being on this I would have to have a catheter put in right a way. It did not really set it until my husband asked if this meant I couldn't get out of bed. She explained that while on the magnesium sulfate that I would be stuck in bed. This had me in tears. I held the down right balling until she left but I had tears in my eyes the moment I understood.  I had a plan of having no plan other than I wanted to go into the tub or the shower while I was in labor, not lay in a bed and then go from there on all the other stuff like pain meds. This changed that. I was thinking before all of this if I could make it to 9 centimeters I would try to do it without pain meds, however I was not apposed to getting them.

I was going to have a pill (sorry I don't remember what it was called) put up near my cervix to soften the cervix. The pill can take several doses before it starts to work. They insert the pill every four hours and you can get up to four doses. The meds were started at 12am Wednesday morning.

Every woman is different when it comes to labour and how their body changes. I think my son would have gone late if it where not for the induction but we will never know. I had not changed at all when we had gotten to the hospital that night. I was completely closed.