Friday, March 18, 2005

not as far as we thought

We were checked in by a guy that obviously is new at the hospital and grew increasingly nervous as Cheryl moaned and hummed through contractions. We got into a labour and delivery room right away. While the nurse helped Cheryl get changed, I ran down to park the Jeep and bring up the bags.

It's windy and the grass from the maintenance crew is flying around. I walk through it with my hands full of bags and thinking to myself how this feels... because I know it's real. And wondering how I'll feel later, looking back at this moment. My mind is full of questions.

I get back to the room and the nurse checks to see how far Cheryl is dilated. Julia (the nurse) says Cheryl's dilated to about 2.5 cm. (0 - 10 is the scale) And she's 90% effaced (that means her uterus has thined significantly). She says it's paper thin now and is the longest part of labour. "You spend most of the time getting to 3 cm, then the rest (after the water breaks) escalates quickly." We're both disappointed. And for the moment, there is the possibility that we'll be going back home. But neither of us thinks that will realistically happen.

I haven't mentioned our stand-in delivery doctor, Dr. Locus. He has been great... he was in surgery early this morning, but has been calling us every couple of hours. Now that I told him we're at the hospital, he says, "I'm on my way." This is of course, very comforting.

He arrives shortly and informs us of the many ways things can go from here. He leaves the room to give us time to think about what to do next. We're left with the choice of breaking waters to induce labour or wait. We decide to wait for an hour and see if the membrane will rupture on its own.

1 Comments:

Blogger Bryan said...

"And wondering how I'll feel later, looking back at this moment." Blogging the event was a pretty cool idea; in addition to letting everyone else know whats going on, now you have a reminder of how you felt at the time. That was probably already blatantly obvious, but this quote made me think of it.

Mon Mar 21, 09:56:00 PM  

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