Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Just Another Day

So today was my due date.  It's 9pm and no sign of baby.

A lot of people don't understand why I am okay with this.  They wonder why my doctor won't induce me.  But the thing is; she will, she actually offered to induce me two weeks ago.  I said no.

This seems odd to many people; that I would say no.  But I have a few reasons.  First of all, I am not very uncomfortable.  I know what it is like to be uncomfortable in the ninth month of pregnancy.  With Jac, I was swollen to the gills, not used to losing sleep and in general just pretty anxious about the whole thing.  But I really am not that uncomfortable with this third baby.  I am very mobile, no swelling to speak of, eating well - I don't sleep anyway, so this is truly one of those babies that its just easier to have her in than out. 

There are other reasons I am okay with going overdue.  One, I really want the spontaneous labor, the 2am contractions, the frantic drive to the hospital - all the drama.  It seems so clinical and controlled to be picking dates and times and methods of induction. I read a book this week that said, should labor and delivery be something that is done to your body or something your body does?  But even if spontaneous labor wasn't enough of an incentive for me not to want to be induced I truly believe that if I am on a Pit drip I will cave and get an epidural.  I haven't really talked about this with many people because a lot of women either think you are truly nuts or they just think you want to be Supermom if you want to deliver naturally.  That isn't it at all.  I may be nuts, but Supermom is not on my radar.  I can go through the reasons that I want to labor naturally or to put a finer point on it, with as few interventions as possible, but I will save that for another day.  The point is, it is my body, my baby and my labor.  If I want to labor out in the woods, it is my decision.  And I know that with one intervention you are pretty much setting yourself up for more.  The Pit drip automatically leads to more aggressive labor than most women's bodies would do naturally making it more difficult to turn down the epidural.  So that is a big reason for me to not want the iduction.

The other reason, which has less backing than just my gut instinct is that I think baby has her own timeline and she will be happier, healthier and just ready when she is ready. 

That all being said.  I am now scheduled to be induced next Tuesday.  So say your prayers that this baby makes an appearance before then, and barring that; that this induction goes as well as it possibly can with as few interventions as possible. 

Oh - one last thing for all you statistics geeks out there.  A baby is considered full term anywhere between 38 and 42 weeks.  Ninety-five percent of women will deliver their babies within this time frame and the other five percent will deliver early or late.  This is a normal curve.  The 40 week mark is simply the average, the mid point.  So now, after realizing that I am simply at the midpoint (I have no idea why I didn't realize this during my first two pregnancies.) of the normal curve for delivery I don't feel so overdue.  Overdue really shouldn't be used at all to describe going bast your due date.  Due date is really a bad term also, it implies that an uncomfortable, fat, hormonal woman who may or may not have had eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in months is somehow defective if her body has not gone into labor by this date.  Enough said about that.

3 comments:

katie mathias said...

good luck with everything dawn! here's hoping it all goes the way you would like (and that your planned natural birth is way better than my unplanned natural birth...more power to you for wanting no epidural). so excited to see the pics of this new little bundle when she finally makes her appearance. maybe this means she will be nice and laid back. :)

Dawn said...

I didn't know you had an unplanned natural birth - crazy. I didn't hear that story, was it Emma? I sure hope you are feeling better, you have had quite the craziness lately.

katie mathias said...

it was actually noah, 2 epidurals did not work. thankfully, i only dealt with 8 hours of actual bad contractions and about 1.5 hours of pushing (not that you need all that info :)) but i am sure people have dealt with a lot worse than that. my water broke with noah so they put me on the pit drip which i guess is standard? emma was the fun contraction drama but she was very considerate and let me sleep through the night and came on the day of my doc appt, so i had already lined up care for noah during the day. i am so excited for you guys. and i am hoping that she does come on her own terms instead of being induced. i am feeling a lot better, thanks for asking. it was a pretty miserable month though.