Sunday, March 08, 2009
The 'joys' of induction
Distractions are good at keeping pain at bay, so anyone reading this gets to share in on a little bit of induced labour.
Today, the idea was to ‘trick’ my body into going into labour by causing uterine contractions with the aid of an internal cream.
It seems that the body is not as easily tricked as modern medicine would like it to be. 3 doses and 11 hours later, my doctor was reporting contractions strong enough to cause a birth, but without any dilation of the cervix.
For those not in the know, the cervix, or the mouth of the uterus, needs to open 10 centimetres, at least. Mine barely made 1 centimetre in an entire day.
But of course, now I’m in a state of limbo. The medicine has after effects, which means that I’m still getting contractions that are painful enough to keep me awake, but still aren’t real labour contractions.
I don’t want a caesarean, so tomorrow will be a new attempt.
For now, I feel like there is a bowling ball resting in my pelvis.
All is not so bad – I managed to teach Mikko how to play rummy. My doctor jokingly asked if he could join in on a game, to which I responded only if he’s any good at it, since Mikko’s just learning and I’ve been playing for as long as I can remember!
Even with a triple handicap of being attached to a saline solution drip, bedridden and taking my turns between contractions, I managed to achieve a grand victory in cards, if not otherwise…
Well, here's to tomorrow's victory... be it in cards, or delivery...
fon @ 11:07 PM link to post * *
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Cooling mock-duck curry
As the title of this blog suggests, there is a bowl of curry standing, cooling, next to typing fingers.
At the same time, there's this bump, squirming, like some overripe alien reluctant to breathe the world's oxygen.
I found out a couple weeks back, that once a baby is delivered, if you don't cut the umbilical cord, the baby could technically even live for a day or two without breathing. The placenta that is now its' sole supply of nutrition and air will continue to do its work as though nothing had happened after birth.
You could also leave a baby with no food or water for about 3 days, and nothing would happen, even without the placenta.
And everyone thinks a baby is a fragile thing. It seems nature had other plans for the species' survival...
What puzzles me more, however, is the abundance of myths around pregnancy. Well, at least my experience has made some claims seem like pure fancy.
First of all - back to my mock duck curry. I ate all the bits I liked, and I'm sorry to say, flushed the rest down the toilet (yes, the toilet - I'm on the third floor of the house, and the kitchen is all the way down on the first). I've never been such a picky eater. And I've never had a smaller appetite. Instead, I've been hungry but nothing I've normally liked has tasted good or seemed appetizing.
I suddenly started disliking ginger, sweet basil and sala (I think it's called salacca in English). And as for the curry, all the pea eggplant had to go.
I didn't go through months of vomiting. In fact, I didn't even vomit once.
My feet didn't swell up.
People didn't notice I was pregnant until my 7th month or so.
No cravings.
A due date is a +/- 2 weeks thing. Mine is now officially late.
Waiting for the end is rather anticlimactic. It's about as much fun as cold curry.
fon @ 8:02 PM link to post * *