And so it goes...

Last Thursday, Daniel and I went to our standard midwife visit. She comes in (actually, she's not a midwife, but an MD - my special conditions mean we get to see the program director of the midwifery clinic quite frequently) and asks how I am.

"I'm SO ready to be done," I tell her.

Five minutes later she says, "You're not going to like this, but you need to go the hospital right now and stay there for 24 hours for observation. And you might be having your baby today."

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An hour later, laying in a hospital bed in shock one thing was very, very clear. I'm not ready at all.

I mentioned pre-eclampsia in my last post. It's a collection of symptoms characterized primarily by sudden high-blood pressure and protein in the urine (from damage to the tiny blood vessels in the kidneys that begin leaking the protien in your blood). Fun stuff. The danger is eclampsia - siezures that can be deadly.

I'll admit it. I'm a little scared. Even though I sense that everything is going to be fine, it's still a little scary. Daniel asked me to have my dad come over while he is at work in case anything happens. Highly unlikely, but better to be safe than sorry.

Obviously, I didn't have the baby yet. From all we can tell, he's doing well. Nice and strong. But pre-eclampsia is a progressive disease and other than trying to control how fast it progresses, the only cure is to deliver the baby. So, I'm on bed rest. Everyone we spoke to, even our doula (also a midwife) who is a huge advocate of letting things progress naturally and tends to think hospitals overreact, made it clear that it would likely be no more than a week and half to two weeks before I had to have the baby.

I'd love to keep the little guy in for another three weeks. That would rock. But I'm alert to any of the danger signs. The only way I can see prolonging it is to stop working completely, which is what will likely happen. We have another round of tests at the hospital this evening, so we'll see what happens before the decision is final. I've already cut down to only one project and its one I could do in my sleep. I've worked on this project for years now and its very dear to my heart and not at all easy to give up. So...we'll see.

I feel like the whole idea of a birth plan, and what I want the birth to go like, is out the window. The more complications I have, the more I'm at the mercy of the hospital system. In the back of my mind, I know this isn't entirely true. I'm going to meet with our doula tomorrow night and this, I think, will be the main focus of our meeting. I'm feeling very grateful that she is a midwife and that her ability to advocate for us in the hospital is strong. I'm also grateful that everytime I've talked to her, I've instantly felt better, calmer.

At this point, what I'd like more than anything is to go into labor naturally. There are a lot of old wives' tales to make that happen, but no way to simply make it happen for sure. I'm afraid of having labor induced with pitocin, which makes contractions much more painful, thus requiring an epidural that I don't want, which could make labor slow down, thus requiring more pitocin, thus placing a lot of pressure on the baby and then we have an emergency c-section. I'm very afraid that is the course my labor is going to take. I'd seriously rather schedule a c-section.

I have made efforts to overcome my fears. Meditative things that I'd like to do or have available during labor.

One is a sort of mandala I painted to hang on the wall at the hospital. When I was six I learned this way to meditate involving moving through a blue tunnel-like ring (the busy mind chatter), then yellow (deeper mind chatter), and finally, through a silver star (the end of the tunnel). I had a construction paper model of this when I was a kid. Oddly, it is still the method I use to meditate and it's been the precursor to many powerful visualizations.

Another is a sculpture Daniel made from a visualization I had during a childbirth class meditation. We were supposed to be imagining the hardest part of labor and envisioning what we were doing. Most people shared a very realistic vision. In mine, I was screaming roughly and had tree branches coming out of my head. Yup. I swear I never did any hallucinegenic drugs. Daniel decided to sculpt his understanding of my vision. It's a rather intense sculpture with a strong sense of grounding in the massive tree-root legs. We'll bring it with. Afterwards, it will be a present for the doula. The doula service she is a part of is called MotherTree.

And last is a medicine bag we created for the baby. At the shower, all the guests held a little lentil in their hands and filled it with good energy, wishes and intentions. The lentils were collected and will be placed in a little bag. I'll bring that bag with and may hold on to it during labor.

Is all that hokey? I dunno. But I feel like I need to arm myself. I wish I could think of another way to say that. I'd love to have that feeling of giving birth being a natural process that my body can do without outside influence. And maybe with the help of Daniel and the doula, I can still make the experience into my ideal vision. Send good thoughts.

Soon the little lentil will be introduced to the world.