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From: Grace Carr
Email: fifteenthousandgiggles@hotmail.com
Category: Induction/Pitocin
Date: 06 Aug 2005
when i became pregnant with my first child last year at the age of 18, i immediately began to gather all the information i could about pregnancy and childbirth. i have dealt with the medical community before and i know that if you want to be informed, you have to not only ask questions, you have to ask the right[/i] questions. so i started reading.i knew from early on in my pregnancy that i wanted to have a natural delivery - no drugs, no IV, no constant fetal monitoring. i was upset to find out near the end of my pregnancy that midwives are covered under OHIP(Ontario health insurance policy, the tax funded public health care system in Ontaro, Canada) but no one had informed me of this. When i saw my GP and she confirmed that i was pregnant, she right away referred me to an OB/GYN. Next time i will definitely go with a midwife. Anyway,my pregnancy was going fine despite a blood disorder that i have that can cause me to bleed easily due to a drop in platelet levels (platelets are the cells that cause clotting). we had been monitoring my levels throughout the pregnancy, and during the 8th month they started to drop. i went and saw my specialist and she said it really wasnt anything to worry about because although my counts were low, the platelets that i did have were healthy and functioning, and statistically i was at no higher risk of hemmorraging than any other woman. so the days went by and my due date came and went and my levels continued to drop. i went in to see my dr when i was about 5 days pst my due date. he said that he wanted me to start thinking about induction because my levels were still dropping. i do not think i made it clear to him at this point how strongly i felt about NOT being induced. thi visit was on a wednesday and i was under the impression that we werent going to do anything at east until the next monday. on thursday i recieved a call from his office with the details of the induction appointment he had set up for me for the saturday morning (even though he was leaving for a vacation friday afternoon, which he failed to inform me of at this time). i was very anxious and upset about the impending induction, but i felt alone and pressured. i decided to call and talk to my Dr. about it in the morning. So i phoned him on Friday morning and told him I had decided not to go through with the induction. he asked my why and i felt very flustered and pressured. He went into a speech about why he thought I needed to be induced. (apperently most of the Dr.s around here routinely induce after 10 days anyway, even though the North American Society of Ob/GYNs recommend 14 days, when the due date if fairly sure to be accurate (which mine wasnt) since routine incuction before that is proven to increase the incidence of c section and other labour complications without producing healthier babies) i told him i wanted to think abput it and he basically said i had until noon to decide, because then he was leaving to go on vacation (this was the first time i had heard about that). it was 11:30 am. i was very upset and anxious and i was so tired of being pregnant. so after a half an hour of crying, i called the dr and told his answering machiene that i would go through with it. that evening my mother called me. my aunt diane was over at her house. diane had spent some time as a labour and delivery nurse and was concerned when she heard i was going to be induced. she asked my sister how i felt about being induced and my sister told her i was very upset about the proposition. diane talked to me and told me about the risks of induction and let me know about my alternatives. on saturday morning i called the hospital and told the dr. that was filling in for my ob/gyn that i had decided not to go through with the induction. i went in to the hospital to have a non-stress test,which was fine, andi also had a blood test that showed my platelet count coming back up. the next day i started feeling some lower bavk pain and abdominal cramps and by 9 pm i knew i was in labour for real. we went to the hospital at 1 am and Miriam was born at 5:54 am, without any drugs, without me being hooked up to an IV, without constant fetal monitoring, and best of all, she was born when she was ready to be born. Miriam Laurel is now a happy, healthy 2 month old, and i owe the world to my Aunt. pictures are online: http://pub26.bravenet.com/photocenter/album.php?cp=1&usernum=2166004811&album=18217 Email: fifteenthousandgiggles@hotmail.com
Just for the record, all information posted here are personal experiences/stories. There are no Doctors/Nurses answering questions on the board. This board is for sharing stories so we can learn from each other! If you have any problems with the board, please email me at Angela4KP1@comcast.net