Day Seven.3

Slowly, Lara is moving toward delivery. Along the way, she continues to make friends.

Our new nurse, Zoë, has seven years experience nursing and has a health policy background. Like Lara, she has a love of nursing and hopes that one day the medical overlords listen to their frontline warriors. Unlike Robin, Zoë lets Lara go to the bathroom.

Zoë says that everything is looking good and are moving, albeit, slowly. Our team is considering giving Lara another dose of Cytotec at around 12:45a. If that does not loosen the cervix, we talked about use of Pitocin. We would start the Pitocin at stage one. Lara is concerned about pain management, rather, how much she can tolerate. 

Noteworthy., almost every nurse who helped us through this process has shared their stories. Some are about the joys of nursing but many others openly discussed their most challenging moments. One woman total us about her miracle baby. Born about 24 weeks, he was about one pound. He now has the deep voice young teenage man. Sadly his would be sibling did not make it.

Another woman shared her IVF story; another her 42 week pregnancy. Before our journey, I took the miracle of child birth for granted; I didn’t fully understand the fear and joy that fills minutes, hours, and days. I am amazed that so many women harbor these stories in their souls.

At some point, we’ll need to get some sleep. Sleep is tough and has been for some time, as one would expect. Last night, the resident required that Lara maintain her medication regimen through the night: midnight, 2:30a, and 5:30a.

Now some of you parents laugh and say, “we’ll wait until you get your kid home”. The issue is that you are home and not in a hospital room we’re adults want to have conversation about your body, want you to take handfuls of pills, and take blood samples. Because of this, and the fact that we haven’t been home for almost a week, I worry that we will both be exhausted before active labor begins.

Fun times!

The image above is a fertility totem. We’ve had it for a couple or so years and it stands over us. It was a gift to Lara from one of her dear friends who somehow knew what exactly to give us. It is a symbol of our journey thus far and the journey to come.

Thanks again.