induction | the natural way
During my whole pregnancy everyone, and I mean everyone has been hoping the baby wouldn't come early.
And, baby listened.
Now, baby is just staying put.
So, as we are 10 days past the due date, my fears are sinking in.
My biggest fear is that we won't be able to have the birth plan we have hoped for and prepared for. Our birth plan has been one I haven't shared too often, as the support has been minimal. In the beginning I was excited to share our birth plan. Slowly with each person's reactions, disregard for my decisions and belittling of my choices, I stopped sharing our plan.
Lack of control is something I’ve learned I need to let go of as this pregnancy nears it’s ending point. I can only do so much, like be healthy and take as good care of myself & the babe, as I can, but ultimately I can’t control everything; like when the babe chooses to arrive.
And while I wait, knowing I cant do anything, I think back on the past nine months and wish I had taken more time for and the babe. I wish I had stopped preparing for when the babe arrived and slowed down to savour the pregnancy more, and connect more. I spent most of the pregnancy being anxious about when the babe would arrive or not arrive.
When the due date passed, my anxiety sky rocketed and all we did was try to find ways to encourage the little one to come out. I hate that after such a healthy pregnancy, the end has been such a rush or figuring out how to control the uncontrollable. I wish we could have been more at ease about the baby taking it’s sweet time, but a very important date (the biggest show of Anthony’s career) is coming closer and closer. If the baby comes on the same day, Anthony sadly will have to miss the birth of his babe, as the show has 26,000 tickets sold (oh the musician life!).
The past few days my daily little mantra has been “don’t come on the 23rd! Please come before the 23rd or after the 23rd, just not the 23rd”. How messed is that? I wanted this super chill experience and yet here we are stressing over something we cannot control. I want this natural birth, with all this chill and yet, we aren’t being chill at all. I hate that we cant just be chill. So in efforts to encourage the babe to come out soon, just not the 23rd, we have done quite A LOT of things….. in efforts to keep things natural, and hoping that daddy would be there to meet his kid, and continuing to coax the baby out, I tried it all.
And tonight, as we are still waiting and I’m writing this, I feel these tiny little waves of pain in my belly like cramping…. and I wonder… I wonder if tonight is the night when things start to work? If maybe tonight will be the last night it’s just us and Lucy, and tomorrow, maybe tomorrow we will meet our little babe?
I sit on the floor, monitoring these waves that are 20 mins apart and wonder. I’m scared it’s just the cramping from my stretch and sweep I had done today and don’t want to get Anthony’s hopes up. So we will see……
** and to update you…. those 20 minutes wave cramping were actually the beginning of my contractions and my labour. It wasn’t until the 22nd that we met our son, Oscar. And, Anthony was there for the birth, and then made it to his show the next day.
The Natural Induction Attempts:
First, a big thing that I did (and it might not be for everyone) was try to keep positive, talk to my baby and try to get past my fears by journaling and letting go all my worries.
Drink ALL the red raspberry leaf tea. I would make a giant pot each night then put it on ice in the fridge and drink it all day long.
Eat mango and pineapple. Ripen that cervix! I literally had one of each a day.
Acupuncture every 2 days, massage therapy to get those induction pressure points
Dirty Chinese food and Burger Priest in one day (which led to me being up all night sick on day 7 overdue and no baby til almost a week later)
Not one, but TWO stretch and sweeps
walk, sex, walk, walk, walk
Spicy everything, literally if Anthony could add spice, he would.
Clary Sage essential oil mixed into lotion, then massaging it into my spine and feed
We were going to do Castor Oil if we didn’t go into labour, but I did end up ingesting it during the labour, which you’l have to read more about that when the birth story goes up.
