As the day went on, the doctor came to check my progress every few hours. Given the high dose of the Pitocin and my lack of pain with the contractions, the nurse was pretty convinced that I was not progressing. I was having contractions every 2-4 minutes, but they were not painful and barely uncomfortable at most. As the day went on, I was still only dilated 1 cm. By 4pm, the doctor and nurse decided that we were going to stop the induction for the day and start Pitocin again Friday morning. I was beyond discouraged by this point, thinking that we would for sure get to meet little Madison on Thursday. The good news was that I was going to get to be unhooked from the monitor and eat dinner! I hadn't eaten since lunch on Wednesday, so I was excited about eating and getting to have something to drink.
By 5pm, the nurse came to unhook me from the monitors. I thought I was going to be unhooked until midnight, but she said I only had 1 hour to be unhooked. I hurried to take a shower and enjoy my free time. After taking a shower, I laid in the recliner in the room, which was the first time I was truly comfortable during the hospital stay. One thing we learned quickly in the hospital was when a nurse or doctor said something was going to happen at a certain time...it never did. Whatever they said would often happen up to 2 hours later than expected. This wasn't true, however, when it came to the monitoring! At 6pm on the dot, the nurse came in to have me get back into bed and start monitoring me and Madison again. She also gave me a medicine called Cervidil, which was supposed to help my cervix begin to soften and hopefully dilate. She said I would have the Cervidil all night and then start the Pitocin again on Friday morning.
Selfish side note...when we went to the hospital on Wednesday, I had freshly washed and straightened hair. It looked great! After my shower on Thursday night, I had to dry my hair in bed without a mirror and didn't have my straightener. I was very sad that my hair didn't look good anymore. Fast forward to 4am Friday morning...I could have cared less what my hair looked like...I was in pain! Needless to say, my hair was not pretty by the time delivery came. =)
When it came to the induction not working on Thursday, I was extremely frustrated, but happy to be able to eat dinner. My parents brought us pasta from Cheesecake Factory and I drank about a gallon of apple juice throughout the evening. The food was so delicious, but I wasn't able to eat much. All the fluids, baby and medicine made me full very fast. We spent the next few hours hanging out in my room. The nurse brought in a fold out bed for Eric, but they took it away a couple hours later. They said it was in the way in case I had Madison in the middle of the night, so Eric was back to sleeping on the recliner for night 2. =)
Around 9pm, we started to get ready for bed. The nurse gave me an Ambien before I went to sleep, with the hopes that I would be able to sleep. I was nervous to take it since I had never taken a prescription sleep pill, but I decided to give it a try. I convinced the nurse to let me sleep in the recliner, so we moved it closer to the heart rate and contraction monitor since I had to be hooked up while I sleep. The nurse told Eric he could sleep in my hospital bed, but he decided to go sleep in the lobby. I fell asleep around 9:45 and slept great! I woke up around 11:45 and felt very shaky. The nurse said it was a side effect of the medicine and not to worry. I was able to fall back asleep and sleep until around 3:30 am. At that point it was Friday morning and things really started to intensify with my contractions. The next 8 hours were the most amazing, unexpected and emotional time of my life.
Day 3 of Madison's birth story to come...
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