Today was my second fetal monitoring session. My blood pressure was a little high, so the nurse hooked me up and then came back after several minutes to try again. It was lower the second time, but I feel like I'm on alert now.
The test itself was fine, Ivy did what she was supposed to do. I laughed at the contraction monitor line on the screen after I sneezed though - whoa.
When it was over, the doctor chatted with me about the possibility of inducing by my due date. She's worried about my blood pressure. I asked if they could do it gently/slowly enough so that I could still have a natural birth, and she basically said "inductions hurt, and you'll probably have a long labor anyway, and so you'll want the epidural." I was pretty bummed out about that, but as I'm processing it I'm feeling better about it. I don't know how many moms she sees who are pretty dead-set against interventions - I'd imagine most moms are happy to have epidurals.
I'm trying to reconcile the feelings I'm having about this news while I'm at work, which isn't really the best way to do it, but oh well. I think what it comes down to is that I'm kind of scared to have any interventions. I want this to be an easy process (and by easy I mean in the long run - I know it's hard to have a natural birth but recovery time is much easier) and I want Ivy to come into the world in the best way possible.
I hear so often "in the end, all that matters is that you have a healthy baby" - but I happen to believe that it's not as healthy to subject them to epidurals and harsh birth circumstances. I don't begrudge anyone else's beliefs when it comes to how they want to birth their babies, of course, but that's what I believe.
That is a lot to process. From what I've read, though, it doesn't seem completely impossible to have a natural birth after induction, providing that the mother can cope with a longer birthing process and the accompanying pain. I hope they'll respect your wishes enough to at least give you the chance to try to have the kind of labour you wanted to. Perhaps you could try to make contact with other mothers who've had an induced labour and done it without meds just to get some advice and encouragement?xx
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's impossible either - my mom actually did it with my younger sister. I'm sure they'll let me try to do it how I want to do it, I just think that at some point (if it comes to it) they're going to tell me my blood pressure is too high and they have to do what they have to do. I'm going to borrow a cuff from a coworker so I can start monitoring myself, and in the meantime I'm starting to rush a little more to pack my hospital bag, just in case I don't come back from a monitoring appointment without a baby!
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