That means ALL of us. We're definitely in the homestretch now, and I say that with all sincerity.
You know that John Wayne movie, "The Quiet Man"? They could make a movie about the last 40 hours of my life and call it "The Tired Man". I get home from work on Wednesday evening, and Heidi is having contractions. Now, she'd been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for a few weeks, so I wasn't concerned. They has started about 5:00 pm. By about 6:00, they were becoming more regular and increasing in intensity, so we started the hydration-and-rest regimen recommended to stop such contractions. She laid down quietly, drank lots of water, emptied her bladder...we basically went by the book. By 6:30, they were still going strong, and in fact, they were establishing a pattern. I told her she needed to rest, but Donovan's Cub Scout pack meeting was that night, and since she's a den leader, she INSISTED on going. (I told her I would take him so she could rest and see if they calmed down, but she refused.)
So we go to the meeting, and she's in heavy denial. Let me give you a few examples: "This can't be happening." and "It's not time." and "I'm not ready yet...he can't be coming." I worked very hard to reassure her that this is in God's hands, not ours, and if this is the time, we must be prepared to accept that. But she wasn't having any. So anyway, we're at the meeting and she's still contracting, and I'm timing now. We leave, and I tell her she's going to lie down and rest for an hour, drink lots of water, and keep her bladder empty. We both know this is our best chance to make this stop. By this time, it's about 8;20pm, and we're timing regularly. As soon as she lies down, the pattern becomes VERY regular, with contractions about 6 minutes apart and about 55-70 seconds long each time. Thirty minutes passes, then an hour, then an hour and twenty. I call the doctor and they tell us to head in. We hadn't packed anything or prepared at all (we thought we had four more weeks, after all), so we hastily throw everything together and we head to the hospital. We call Heidi's parents to come stay with Donovan, and we call Heidi's sister Dari because she's the other support person. Once we get to the hospital, the contractions get stronger and they get closer together; they go to five minutes apart, then just two to three minutes apart. We were certain that Owen's arrival into the world was imminent.
How wrong we were. Owen wasn't engaging; in other words, Owen was not dropping, so his head was not moving into the pelvic area where it could begin to apply pressure to the cervix. This is obviously necessary for him to begin exiting. The nurse checked Heidi but could not feel his head at all. He was in the right position, the contractions were great, but he just wasn't coming out. By this time it was 1:30 am and so the nurse recommended that Heidi try to get some rest, thinking that the relaxation would perhaps help her body move Owen along and he would drop. She slept fitfully for just nearly two hours, and the nurse checked again. Still nothing. Unfortunately, the doctor was unwilling to try more active measures, because we were only 36 weeks, and the doctors don't like to do anything until 37 weeks or later. Though 40 weeks is full-term, doctors consider any time after 37 weeks extremely low-risk for the baby. So we weren't far enough along for the doctors to try to induce. So they recommended we go home, with Heidi taking a dose of Ambien to help her relax and rest more. The idea was that one of two things would happen: either a) Heidi's body would relax and facilitate Owen's movement downward, and labor would progress as normal, or b) Heidi's body would relax and the contractions would naturally subside, and we could go about our business. To me this smelled like a big, steaming pile of false alarm, especially once I stepped out into the strong Colorado wind that brought down the stench of the farms and ranches just north of town, a particularly apropos funk for my mood at that point.
Heidi did sleep very well most of the day Thursday, but the contractions kept going, and have been going since then. She went to the doctor this morning, and they basically told her that she's too far along to give her anything to stop the contractions, but she's not far enough along to take active steps to help the labor. So they can't help her. This doesn't do anything but make her really mad. By the time she got there, she'd been having contractions for over 36 hours, and to have them tell her that they can't do anything for her really made a frustrating situation that much worse.
And so, that's the status quo for us. As I write this, Heidi has been having continuous contractions, 6-7 minutes apart and about 60 seconds in duration, for nearly 53 hours, and Owen is no closer to joining us. To say the least we're very frustrated and exhausted, too; Heidi at least got to sleep, while I handled incidental situations like Heidi's family and work and class (it's the end of term and I had final exams and projects to grade and final grades to submit). It's also mid-month, meaning lots of bills need to be paid. So we have a lot happening right now, and it's a bit overwhelming but also maddening because we just want him to COME OUT.
Pray for us that Owen will finally decide the time is right and he'll just drop right out of there...AND SOON. Thanks for reading along.
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