I never thought I would be sitting here writing about this today. It's August 6th. Today is suppose to be my first day with my baby in my arms. Instead, I'm laying in my own bed after having slept a full 12 hours still wondering who my baby is going to look like. I have had the most perfect pregnancy for the entire 9 months. Now, at the end of it, I feel like it's marred by a failed induction. Failed. I don't do "failed".
I am mad at myself for putting myself in this position really. I know not to rush a baby, but we were so excited to have him here. If you were excited and offered to be able to schedule the day that your baby came and it was only 5 days early, you might would do it too. It was a very hard thing to pass up...obviously it proved to be impossible for us to pass up. As a nurse I should have known the risks of an induction. But I am not a labor and delivery nurse. Beyond the increased risk of a c-section, I never knew they were any real risks. Of course with any medical procedure anything can happen. I'm more than aware of that. But the fact that the induction could fail and I could be sent home with no baby after the longest and most exhausting day of my life is not an option that I was ever aware of. The fact that all of our families could come here, missing work, driving hours, getting hotel rooms, and could be sent back home with no baby in sight was never a possibility that I knew was out there. Of course now I feel guilty for trying to rush our sweet baby out of the womb 5 days early, but it was offered with such earnest that I never knew we could possibly be sitting here as a family of 2 still cooking this little boy today.
But here's what I have learned. It was a lesson. A lesson to teach us that we really are ready for our baby boy. I was crying on the way to the hospital the night of induction because I just didn't think we were ready. I was scared of having a newborn at home, and I was worried about how Josh and I would handle it. Now, I know we can do it, and I am really ready. It was a lesson to teach us that you can't plan everything. All my plans and schedules are out the window now. If the baby stays up all night and sleeps all day, so what? I will too! I'm not going to freak out if he doesn't want to nurse exactly every 2 hours. And I know now that once he comes everything won't go exactly as planned. I wanted a delivery as perfect as my pregnancy. I wanted my OB there, my anesthesiologist, my nurse friends, my family, my schedule. Yesterday was God with a pretty big reminder that He's in control of all that, not me. The biggest lesson He is teaching me right now is one of patience. My maternity leave started yesterday. I don't have that much, and I wanted to work until the bitter end so I could spend every second of what I have home with my baby. It's about to kill me to know I'm at home "wasting" it now, but this is another one of those lessons I have to take in stride. We have a great sitter for when I go back to work. My baby will be ok there. I have to trust that this will all work out and be grateful for the time that I can afford to take off work.
So now we wait. And this is waiting like we have never waited before. We know what real contractions are like now, so we wait to feel a familiar twinge. We will be fielding calls about "no not yet" until he actually comes. And the day he comes we will just hope our families are able to make the journey back to see him. Today the tears have stopped. Yesterday was next to hysteria when I figured out I was going home pregnant. I felt like I had let everyone down including myself. I wasn't entirely happy with the information we had been given involving an elective induction, and I was so upset about starting maternity leave for nothing. Today though is the day I realized that God is really in control. We have to trust Him and His plan..not mine.
Today I will continue my watched pot status. Tomorrow I will cook, clean, and do a little pre-studying so that once this baby comes I will have even less things to worry about! I will trust completely in God's plan and try very hard to put all of my wishes, concerns, and overwhelming excitement on the back burner to allow God's plan to come into the forefront.
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