If you're one of our dear friends or family members who sent many warm wishes our way leading up to my scheduled induction on August 22nd, we haven't forgotten to update you. We just don't have an update. The Blue Moon this week, or perhaps some other atmospheric force, sent an insane amount of women into labor, flooding the Family Birthing Center at The Baby Factory. Somehow I was unaffected by this force (or maybe just mildly so), and so they've had absolutely no room for elective inductions.
I know a few people who have had scheduled inductions at this exact same hospital in the past. The protocol is that they'll call between midnight and midnight on the day of your induction. I don't know of anybody who hasn't gotten a call before the rising of the sun. But here I am 45 hours after midnight on the 22nd, and no call. Poor Dylan has been put in charge of calling the crabby ladies at the OB Command Center for updates, and I'm always at the top of the list, but they have had an astonishing amount of women in labor and just can't fit us in. And unfortunately some people spend 2 hours in labor and some spend 27 hours in labor, so they don't know what to tell you about when they'll have availability. The call was supposed to come last night. Then it was supposed to be this afternoon. Now it's a 35% chance we'll get called before midnight...but probably early tomorrow morning. And hopefully it won't be before midnight, as I'd much prefer sleep over labor tonight.
I am mildly frustrated, but something in me insists that this is happening for a reason. I think the baby needed to bake for a couple extra days. Maybe these days will make the difference between healthy and immature lungs? I was never very thrilled about scheduling an induction, as anyone who has done any reading on the matter knows that it's a 100 times better to go into natural labor. So maybe the extra couple days will give me the opportunity to do just that.
It's a bummer because we've coordinated for Dylan to have a little bit of time off work, and now a couple of days have been wasted. But the purpose of the induction, as far as the doctor is concerned, is because the baby is so big. The reason I agreed to it (as I've become much more a lover of nature and slightly skeptical of Western medicine) was just so that Dylan could be here for the birth. I hate the idea of an induction, but I hate the idea of Dylan missing the birth of his baby even more. Even with the delay, he won't miss the birth, so what's a couple extra days, right? Unfortunately his parents flew out late Wednesday with plans to go back to Oregon tomorrow afternoon. So they're changing their plane tickets, and as anyone knows, that is neither cheap nor convenient. But it is what it is.
Because I had the time to be super-prepared earlier in the week, I made sure my house was cleaned, the dishes were done, the laundry was done, etc., etc. We've spent the past two days doing a whole lot of nothing, except hanging with family. Which is actually not nothing, but something to be valued. And hence, the house is a little more lived-in and not quite as pristine. So I may have some simple chores to attend to when we bring the baby home, but it's really not a big deal.
So things are fine. I've never had a reputation for being a patient person, and maybe this was an important lesson for me. I don't know what my labor will be like or even when I'll get to the hospital, but as long as the outcome is good and I have a healthy baby to hold, nothing else matters to me.
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