Stripped

So I had my appointment yesterday morning. I went in thinking that perhaps my doctor would pull out a planner and ask if Wednesday at 9 am or Thursday at 2 pm was better for me for an induction, but no such luck. Instead, I walked in blindly to a rather painful experience. As the doctor performed the internal (which is uncomfortable to begin with), a frown crossed her face. Hand still thrust within she said, "Well, you're still not dialated enough to induce. What I'm going to do now is strip your membranes, hopefully get things moving."

OW.

Yeah, so that hurt. A lot. I sat there wincing, completely clueless about what the hell she was doing. As she snapped her gloves off, she said she'd see me at 9 am on Thursday and we'd see where to go from there.

OW.

The drive home was nerve-wracking. I was in so much pain, but it wasn't the wave-like pain that so many women describe when discussing contractions. Instead, it was like someone had stuck some kind of pole into my insides and was twisting slowly and deliberately- like my internal organs were functioning like a towel being twisted. I called my mom to let her know what was up, and she sounded just as quizzical as I felt. I begrudgingly crawled into bed, though sleep was probably a good hour away as I lay writhing in discomfort.

OW.

I didn't get up again until like 2 in the afternoon, and by the the pain had subsided somewhat. It was at this point that I decided to figure out what the hell my doctor had actually done to me. As I read, the pain suddenly made perfect sense. "Stripping of the membranes" is a practice that is used not necessarily to induce labor, but to bring it closer and make induction a possibility. The amniotic fluid sac is attached to the side of a woman's uterus by thin layers of mucus. A doctor who wants to "strip the membranes" will insert her fingers into the pregnant woman and swipe this natural adhesive away, functionally having it float around.

This can have a variety of effects. If the woman is already super close to labor, this will set off a chain of contractions, and voila, baby en route. If not, it puts more pressure on the sac via gravity which can cause the water to break and contractions to start. If you're really close to labor as it is, this will set off labor usually in the first 24 hours (no such luck here), but the typical window for it to get the party started is 72 hours. In my case, that will be the start time of my next doctor's appointment.

Well, further armed with knowledge about what was going on in my body, I decided to start walking around in hopes that all the jostling combined with the newly liberated status of the amniotic fluid sac would cause my water to break. No go, but it did cause some contractions. We'll see what happens on today's constitutional.

One interesting note, I think my mucus plug dislodged today. I know I had already talked about this occurring, but the plug can grow back, and given that its last appearance was spotting only, it's possible that it did not fully dislodge last time. However, this time around, the discharge was far more... plug like. I won't gross you out any more than that.

The point is, things are getting closer every hour. A bunch of people are in town this weekend for some of my coaches' wedding, so maybe Ava will arrive in time to meet the whole crew. We'll just have to wait and see. Time to go walk it out. Wish me luck!