The Induction

It occured to me last night after my post that I haven't explained what happened to Ethan. I had a very normal pregnancy. No problems whatsoever. I was scheduled to be induced eight days before my due date. The Tuesday before the induction I had my last doctor's appointment. Everything was fine. We listened to Ethan's heartbeat and confirmed the induction and I left.

On Thursday November 5th, I arrived at the hospital early to start the induction. The nurses came in and started hooking up the belt to monitor Ethan's heartbeat. They fumbled around for several minutes and placed the belt several different times only to have to undo it and start over because the machine couldn't pick up the heartbeat. At this point I am starting to hyperventilate. They brought in a doppler like the OB uses in office and found a heartbeat, but it was slow. They told me I had to calm down and steady my breathing so they could get an accurate heartbeat. I am panicking because something is wrong with my baby and they want me to calm down. I did the best I could. The head nurse timed the pulse in my wrist with the heartbeat on the doppler and it was the same. Next they brought in an ultrasound machine and a midwife. I already feared the worst. The midwife left and one of the doctor's from my practice came in. She stood in front of the ultrasound machine so I was unable to see anything, but I could tell by increasing speed of her breathing that my worst fear had come true. At that moment she stepped to the side and showed us where his heart was and there was no movement. My baby was dead.

I just closed my eyes and kept saying "no, no" over and over. This could not be happening. I knew people that this had happened to, but it couldn't happen to me. I didn't ever want to open my eyes, but heard my husband's voice saying "baby stay with me." I openend my eyes and looked at him and said "I know this pregnancy wasn't planned, but this is not fair." The nurses left us alone for a few minutes and then the nightmare got worse. Not only was the baby dead, but I had to go through the whole labor and delivery process as if nothing was wrong. And so they moved me to a room at the end of the hall where we wouldn't be disturbed and the anesthesiologist was called in for an epidural. The idea was to keep me out of physical pain as much as possible. Once the epidural was in place they started pitocin and the waiting game began.

In the mean time blood was taken in an effort to find out what had gone wrong. My doctor came in a few hours into the process and said the test to show if the placenta had come detached was positive. As she prepared to break my water she warned me that there would probably be blood in the water. The water was completely clear, just as it should be. We still didn't know what had happened to our baby. We would have to wait until his arrival to find out more.
To be continued.....