I had a lot of mixed feelings coming up to my induction. I was very excited about the impending birth of my son, but I was a little bit disappointed to have missed out on the experience of going into labor on my own. Leading up to the night I was to go to the hospital (July 17) I kept hoping I’d go into labor spontaneously, but it didn’t happen. There was, of course, a lot of anticipation and excitement anyway. I was honestly a little relieved at not having to worry about my water breaking in public, or going into labor and not being able to reach anyone, or having my baby on the side of the Dulles Toll Road in rush hour traffic. Once I accepted that I wasn’t going to go into labor on my own, I started to hope that once the induction had been started, the Cervadil alone would be enough to start my contractions, so that I would at least have some of the experience of going into labor spontaneously.
We went to the hospital around 8:30 Thursday evening. We were shown to our room — lucky number 13. I’m not a superstitious person, but it actually occurred to me to ask for a different room. It seems to me that maybe they should skip room 13 on the labor & delivery floor, kind of like skipping floor 13 in hotels. I decided I was being silly, though, and joked a bit about being in room 13 coupled with the full moon! I sat around for quite a while, waiting while Dan went and checked us in officially. Eventually, the nurse came in, hooked me up to a bunch of monitors and got the induction officially underway by inserting the Cervadil, at around 9:00. (That part wasn’t very exciting, though, because nothing really happens at that point — it’s a bit anticlimactic.) The nurse took a medical history that took FOREVER. It wasn’t that big of a deal for me (just kind of boring) but I can imagine it’s not a lot of fun to go through that for someone who already is in active labor. When the nurse checked me, I was the same 1 cm dilated I had been at the doctor’s office the week before. I was disappointed — I had been hoping that I would be one of those fortunate people who show up at the hospital halfway to having a baby without even knowing it. No such luck!