Another midwife visit.

[rivka]

I can't believe that I'm still pregnant after 10 days of prelabor.

Yesterday the cramping and the sharp pains around my cervix were so uncomfortable that they almost had me crying. Today I'm feeling a bit better, physically - well enough that I took a walk around the block - but I'm very discouraged.

At today's visit I was 3.5cm dilated and 60% effaced - barely changed from a week ago. She stripped the membranes, with my permission. It really didn't hurt any more than a regular pelvic exam. Hopefully that will do something, but I'm not feeling especially optimistic right now.

We talked about things I could do to speed labor along. My midwives really don't recommend castor oil, but she did suggest that I start black & blue cohosh - 10-15 drops each in a little water, every 30 minutes until contractions are regular (or for four hours, if contractions don't start). I'll try that in the morning. I'm also going to continue with the evening primrose oil. She recommended sex, spicy food, nipple stimulation, crying, and yelling at curiousangel. (I'm pretty sure the last two were jokes.)

At 41 weeks - so, this weekend - they want me to go in for a nonstress test. She told me to bring my suitcase, because if the baby's in distress I won't be going home again, but also said that there's no reason to believe that the baby will be in trouble. Because of the situation with my hip, after 41 weeks they're willing to go any direction I want to go - waiting, or induction, or scheduling a C-section. If I wait, they'll do a biophysical profile between 41 and 42 weeks, and then after 42 weeks they would want to see me three times a week to monitor the baby's condition.

We talked the most about a Cervidil induction. She said that even though it's primarily a cervical ripening agent, when the cervix is already ripe it usually brings on contractions. (She said it works that way for about 75% of the women in their practice.) The big advantage of Cervidil would be that it could be removed if the contractions got strong, and that it wouldn't necessarily lead to the cascade of interventions you can get with a Pitocin induction. I would have to stay in bed and not eat anything for the first two hours, but after that I could move around, get in the tub, go home if it doesn't work, etc. I wouldn't need an IV or continuous fetal monitoring.

I don't think we're willing to try a Pitocin induction unless the baby is in distress. It just seems like there are too many downsides.

A friend recommended that, if I turn out to need a Pitocin induction, I consider just scheduling a C-section instead. She pointed out that the only thing worse than a C-section is a long hard labor ending with a C-section, and that I've already been told I have a greater than 50% risk of section anyway. I am not convinced, but I'm sitting with the idea to kind of get used to it.

I'm having some cramping now from the internal exam. I wish that at this point I believed that cramping *meant* anything.

Comments

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

sex, spicy food, nipple stimulation

Wait a minute. Isn't that redundant? The spicy food can vary independently, and you can have nipple stim without sex...but are there really people who have sex with no nipple stimulation? Learn something every day.

A friend of mine had a C-Section March 17, and was ordained an Episcopal Priest April 2. (Sounds like a Snickers commercial: have a C-Section, get ordained.) They don't have to be bad, I guess is the point. If any.

You would know, I guess, if Pitocin is actually associated with neurological disorders in the child, later in life. My Pitocin birth was blamed for my ADHD for a while, until we noticed that everyone in my family, induced or not, has it to some degree. So I dunno.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Some people have nipples that aren't wired right for stimulation to be pleasant, it's too much, too intense and on the wrong edge of painful, so it can be very mood breaking. (This is true for all genders.) Some women's nipples that used to be ordinary develop this extreme sensitivity during pregnancy. Some never change back.

Now I'm sure that's TMI for you, but there you go.

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

No, not TMI. But I think that's just terrible. Those poor people!

Could you like, cover them with something (a dental dam, maybe) to lessen the stimulation so they could feel it on the pleasant side? Or is it just the whole thing...I guess the association would still make it unpleasant.

Wow. I really HAVE learned something. I normally go for the most intensity in my lovemaking (for both me and my partner), but "the wrong edge of painful" sounds like I need to be careful in this case.

Thanks for enlightening me to this. My lovemaking skills just improved slightly by knowing I have to watch out for this. Not that I've USED the said skills in mumblemumble...[trails off]

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Nipples can be tricky beasts. If I'm already aroused, I like nipple stimulation. But it doesn't "get me there" if you know what I mean. Except occasionally, when it does. And even when it feels good, it can go very quickly from feeling good to just feeling tickley. See what I mean about the tricky?

Umm, not that this specific information will be of any particular use to you. Just offering a point of comparison, y'know?

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I read your first sentence as "Nipples can be tricky breasts..." Now I have this imaging of a great rampaging nipple with teeth like a velociraptor's.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

Now I have this imaging of a great rampaging nipple with teeth like a velociraptor's.

Oh, so that's what jumped out of Janet Jackson's bustier during the 2004 Super Bowl...

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The spicy food can vary independently, and you can have nipple stim without sex...but are there really people who have sex with no nipple stimulation? Learn something every day.

Early in pregnancy, my nipples hurt SO MUCH that I had to sleep in a bra so they wouldn't brush against the sheets and wake me up with agonizing pain. You damn betcha no one was allowed to stimulate them.

But also, when they talk about nipple stimulation to promote labor, they're talking about doing it for, like, an hour at a time. I won't say I've never done that in a sexual context, but it's hardly habitual.

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

OW OW OW! Gods, sorry I brought it up. MY nipples are hurting now.

And I've definitely done nipple stimulation for more than an hour in a sexual context - it was one thread among several, of course, but I did.

But I see what you mean now.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, even if one can't keep up that kind of a marathon session (an hour or more! yikes!) nipple stimulation does have the benefit of helping prepare for nursing.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

doing it for, like, an hour at a time

!!! My god.

-J

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I have a partner whose nipples are about as sensitive as my thumb knuckles are.

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

Which sentence had me playing with my thumb knuckles, just to see.

What can I say...it's been a long day :-)

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

That explains a few things about some people...not that I'd get my thumb knuckles pierced, but...