We entered Labor and Delivery on Monday, February 9, 2009 to induce. After checking into room 5 and getting set up, the nurses came in and set up machines to monitor my wife (Carolyn) and our baby (Chloe). They monitored two things, the baby’s heart rate and my wife’s contractions. The nurse had Carolyn put a stretchy material around her belly. The nurse placed some jelly on the monitors and placed them underneath this stretchy material. The monitor for the heart rate was smooth and flat, but the monitor for the contractions had a bump in the middle. Carolyn found this second monitor uncomfortable. She often had to move it around when it got irritable.

Next, the nurses hooked Carolyn up to an IV so they could give here pitosin. Pitosin is a synthetic version of oxytosin. Oxytosin is the hormone in a woman’s body that causes her to start having contractions and go into labor. They stuck a needle in her arm, near her left hand to set up the IV. Through the IV they gave her pitosin and water. They started at such a low level of pitosin that if they didn’t add water, her vein would have closed up and they would have had to re-set up the IV.

Then it was time to wait. Chloe’s heart rate was good. It fluctuated between 120 and 140. The nurse said it was good that it didn’t always stay the same. The machines on Carolyn’s right showed that her contractions were starting to increase. They lasted about a minute and were about two to three minutes apart. You measure how far apart they are by counting the time from the beginning of one contraction to the beginning of the next. The nurse said, “You’re having a contraction. Do you feel that?” “No,” Carolyn responded with a smile. She was sitting up happily in her bed playing cards. If we just went by the machine, I would have said that this baby was coming very quickly, but the nurses were far more interested in how Carolyn was feeling, and by the looks of her casual demeanor they weren’t so hopeful that this baby would be coming soon.

Later that evening, Carolyn was still feeling fine. The nurses took her off the pitosin and decided they would try again the next day. I was afraid they might send us home. We had everything at the hospital, and I really didn’t want to go home. But, they let us stay the night. Carolyn slept in her bed, and I slept in a chair that expanded out into a somewhat stiff bed.