Well, it was leap year so that throws it off a bit, but on this Saturday one year ago I began my two day labor of love.
Nearly two weeks beyond the latest of the three due dates I was given, I was near my breaking point. I had already called my midwives and broken down sobbing, I wanted to have this baby and I wanted my husband to be with me, if I had to be induced, c-sectioned, I wanted him by my side. It goes to show that when we plan, life has a way of intervening to change things up. We truly thought that our son would be born somewhere between February 11th-February 22nd. Kevin would be with me for a couple weeks post-delivery and then he had to go wrap things up in Vienna. His plan was to leave that first weekend in March, and here we were on the 28th of February and no baby in sight. I was beside myself. I had fully prepared to have the baby without him if Jameson decided to make an early entrance, but we had been sitting on our expanding-butts for three weeks. My midwife, Adele, said that she would call the hospital to see if they would schedule me for an induction the following day, February 29th. I just laughed through my tears, thinking to myself, of course this baby would be born on the 29th.
She called back an hour later saying they wanted me to be two weeks post due date which wouldn't be until March 04th, but had I tried accupuncture? No, but I had tried everything else, so I called up the birth center to get a recommendation and promptly called to make an appointment. They were amazing and told me to just come in and they would fit me in. The doctor was wonderful and warm, and his name was Dr. Zhou. He was an MD and a doctor of traditional Chinese Medicine. He looked at me and said, "Yes, the baby is very big and ready to come out, let's see what we can do."
He was a bit worried since my last ultrasound had been awhile ago. He wanted to make sure there wasn't a medical reason I hadn't delivered. He performed some light accupuncture that did start some soft contractions, but I scheduled an appointment for the next day too. After the "all clear" on the ultra sound and the tech said something to the effect of he is just comfortable in there, but he looks great. I headed back to the accupuncturist. This time he said to me, "OK, now I give you accupuncture like a strong chinese woman. This is a big baby, maybe 8 pounds 4 oz, time to come out Jameson." (He got the 4 oz right...but he was three pounds off). I received the accupuncture at noon on Saturday (March 1st) and leaving the office holding Kevin's hand I could feel the crazy energy running through my body, down my legs. It was going in the right direction, we wanted the energy moving downwards. When Dr. Zhou told me that over 80% of his patients who get accupuncture to induce labor go into labor that night I was skeptical, but by the time I left his office I knew that I would go into labor that night.
By 6pm I was having regular contractions that were growing stronger by the hour. At 11:oopm, Kevin and I went on a walk. It was a cold night, but perfectly clear. The energy was still moving through my legs, and I can't describe the feeling exactly, but it was like a hot, tingly feeling. I went to bed hoping and praying that these contractions wouldn't go away as they had in the past when I went to bed.
2 comments:
Uh yeah, did I get that right? Jameson was 11 POUNDS????? Yikes! As a woman who is pre-child, I may not be able to read the rest of this story, but wow. You're pretty amazing.
Yes, you got that right, and you are also correct that you may want to hold off reading the next part of the story! All I can say is that I am super glad I had absolutely no idea how big he had grown, I was thinking big at 10 lbs. :)
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