guts

"God, give me guts."

-Eli Mygatt

Last night I was a mess of anxiety, knowing that the morning brought castor oil and all the unstoppable things that come with it. Castor oil has been used through the ages to induce labor naturally. I suppose I should mention that we are indeed down to that wire of labor induction.

I'm 42 weeks and 1 day. 

My midwife is in daily contact with her backup obstetrician. 

He gave us one more day: tomorrow.

But first, today. I had a rough night - any pregnant woman will tell you that the last few weeks of pregnancy are not at all comfortable. There's insane pressure on your bladder, which means waking up pretty much every 2 hours on the hour to pee. Plus I was anxious...kind of in a day-before-Disneyland kind of way...so I was up at 2am researching castor oil inductions and experiences on the internet. Then at 4:30am my dog decided to get sympathy GI issues and whined and scratched to be let out. So yeah. rough night. At 8:30 this morning I started drinking a concoction of frozen fruit and castor oil and it tasted like...you know how some cutting boards (ie: bamboo) you have to oil? It tasted like fruit and cutting board. Or, like wooden chop sticks. Not too bad amongst the mangos, strawberries, pineapples, and banana. 

It took all of 15 minutes for my body to realize that that right there was not just a smoothie and started rebelling accordingly. I got super lethargic and a little bit weepy, then took a walk, where (surprise!) I threw up about 1/3 of the smoothie. Maybe more like 1/4. At any rate, it's all that was in my stomach today and it was just as fruity on the way back out. 

Castor oil cleans you out. Like, more intensely and effectively than anything I've ever done before. I know people tell horror stories about it, but really it wasn't that bad. I actually felt scrubbed clean from the inside out. Then I felt really dehydrated and crappy, so I took a nap and then went to my midwife appointment at 2:30pm. 

From that appointment I learned that I had indeed progressed a little from last time, and she proceeded to strip membranes, which is NOT the most comfortable thing I've ever done. It was actually pretty terrible, but it didn't last long, and she felt the baby respond to it (drop down a little) and really in a weird sort of way I felt this crazy relief. I don't know if it came from me or the kid but it was like an "aha!" moment, like this is the way things were supposed to be fitting together. It was at this appointment she mentioned that we've got one more day, to do the castor oil again earlier in the morning, and to put myself on a schedule that alternates nipple stimulation via breast pump, hip shaking, and walking. All those things plus the herbs/supplements I'm taking (red raspberry leaf, evening primrose oil) are the natural forms of whatever induction I'd be receiving in the hospital. Granted not as strong (which is a good thing), but still. And of course sex was mentioned for the semen's prostaglandin effect on the whole process, which after some research I read that's what Cervidil (a cervix dilator) is - just synthetic prostaglandins. You can decide for yourself which is more fun ;)

So then after that I went down to my chiro/doula and got adjusted, then took a power walk around the park. I've been getting cramps pretty seriously since I left my midwife's and have a couple more hours of induction activities before I take the rest of the night off and try to get good sleep.

That's all for now, any questions?