41 and 3

Still here, hanging by a thread.... We went in for monitoring, bp, blood and urine tests. Baby's movements and heartrate are excellent, my urine and blood came back normal-no protein spillage, but my bp remained a bit high and the swelling/edema in my lower legs remained as well, but I chalk that up to sitting for nearly 6 hours in chairs waiting for results. The doctor thought that I should stay in overnight for bp monitoring every hour with a 70% of them squeezing me in for an induction. I got the deer-in-the-headlights-look on my face, and M and I discussed it, and we both knew from previous experience that there was no way that I'd sleep at all in the hospital and then go into a possible induction that we were setting me up for big time failure. We reasoned with the doc and her higher-upper person that it would be best that we just go home and get some sleep, and we would call back in the morning with the proviso that any blurry vision/headaches/chest pain that we'd return immediately.

We went home, ate, and went to bed and I had an emotional melt-down. Not for mourning the loss of my UC/homebirth, but of the SHEAR TERROR of having to go through that special kind of hell (for me, that is) called induction. My first-born was induced at 41+3, and that is what I am today. By the time I finally asked for the epidural, I wanted to claw my face and belly off, and was pleading for the L&D nurses to knock me out under general anesthesia and c-section me.

I got about 5 hours of sleep. It is amazing to me how nackered I get when I have been crying. I got up and took a bath to try to come to grips with the induction, and had a complete break-down again. M called the hospital to see if they had space for me and they wanted me in pronto. I got out of the bath and curled up on the bed and sobbed. I could not come to grips with an induction. My intelligent mind told me that I *should* go in, but emotional mind wouldn't let me. I was too emotionally fragile, and I knew then and still know now, that if I had gone in that I'd end up resenting myself, my dear sweet M, and even my innocent unborn. What would be a fix for one day would become years of what needed to be fixed. We called in, and they tried to persuade us into coming in today because they had room today (barely), but we asked if a community midwife could just be sent out for a bp and doppler tones later, and a reschedule of induction. We are asked to call in Friday morning to see if there is any room, otherwise Monday morning, or we go in if something drastic happens as a spike in BP, blurry vision, headaches, and/or chest pain.

So hopefully my water breaks before then, and labor starts before then--otherwise it is induction hell for me.