Induction Day
Sounds like a holiday, doesn’t it?
So it’s finally time to evict Chris’ little body-houseguest, and since things have been a little too calm around here, we needed some last-minute drama.
Chris came down with a nasty UTI on Sunday, and by Monday was pretty miserable. She called in to Kaiser and they told her to come in for a urine sample, and also to get some pregnancy-safe antibiotics. As painful and frustrating as this was, there was a bit of good news as Chris emerged from the lab and said she thought she’d lost her mucous plug while leaving her sample.
For those not in the know, the mucous plug is what seals off the cervical canal during pregnancy. After it falls out, the next step is normally the amniotic sac rupturing, followed by the onset of labor. Now, it can be hours or days even between losing the plug and the water breaking, so this wasn’t a guarantee of anything, but it meant things were happening.
However, she was still miserable and in serious discomfort. We got the antibiotics, went home and she took it easy.
Tuesday, she was feeling better, but following up with Kaiser they wanted her to come in and do some monitoring. We went in that afternoon and she got strapped in and listened to the baby’s heart rate for an hour or so. For whatever reason, he’s never been particularly fond of the monitor setup and tends to move away from the sensor, and this time was no exception. There was lots of readjusting and shifting around (near the end the poor little guy got the hiccups) in order to get the required amount of data, but in the end everything seemed just fine.
As we went to bed that night, however, Chris noted that he hadn’t really been moving around all that much. He hadn’t even been particularly active right after dinner, which is when he typically has given a little yay-food performance. We lay and I felt her belly for a while in the dark, and even tried to stimulate him with a flashlight and by gently pushing and prodding at him. He reacted a bit, moved a few times, but not quite to the degree we’ve seen before.
Come morning, we’re both a little worried. He’s been moving but much less than usual, and Chris is even more concerned. In addition to the UTI and the antibiotics, she’s taken a Tylenol for a nagging headache, which I suspect is coming on because she’s a bit dehydrated. So another call to Kaiser, and back in for another session of monitoring. At this point we’re both fully prepared that we might get sent straight along to the hospital if something seems wrong.
We get in and they strap on the monitor, and right away there’s his heartbeat, steady and strong. I was surprised to realize what a relief it was to hear. I am normally not prone to panic, and even when I am concerned I try not to let Chris see, so my worry doesn’t feed hers. But in retrospect, I do believe I was freaking out just a bit here.
But the monitoring goes very well. First and foremost, the kid’s fine. Heartbeat is strong, he moves around, hits all of the nurse’s criteria. But at the same time, he doesn’t seem to fuss like he has before. He stays put and at times the heartbeat is so loud he must be right beneath the sensor. The monitor also shows that there’s a whole lot of uterine contractions going on – not quite constant, but frequent – that Chris isn’t even feeling yet. Yet another sign that things are continuing to happen in there. A little behind our predicted schedule, but otherwise as expected.
We’ve joked that she’ll probably go into labor on our way in for the induction. Here’s hoping that’s prescient.
