As those following in email and facebook know, Patrick Wyand Pontius Rankin finally made his appearance. It wasn't quite as smooth and easy as William, but all things considered went very well.
My water broke Tuesday around noon, but labor hadn't fully started. My doctor decided to give the baby 24 hours to come naturally before trying to induce labor (also standard practice in the US, since risk of infection increases after the water breaks). One day later, still no significant change in labor pains, so we checked into the hospital, not really knowing quite what might happen.
To make this G-rated, I'll keep the details to a minimum; if you'd like to know the full labor/delivery story, just send me an email :)
They decided to use a tablet (rather than IV) to try and induce labor because I wasn't very far along yet, and the IV drip could make things go too fast. The doctor and midwife both thought one dose of the tablet would be enough, but said we could try it for another 24 hours before having to consider other options. Well, three doses and 12 hours later, finally contractions started. Greg and I think those were about the 12 most boring hours we've spent: thinking something is going to happen, only to be told a few hours later no progress had been made. We watched some pretty terrible movies on TV, Oh Brother Where Art Thou? on DVD, and some India-Australia one day test match cricket.
Since contractions started happening every 2 minutes (around midnight), we then decided to not do any more inducement procedures and just see how things played out. I was feeling about how I felt when I woke up with labor pains with William, so my mood changed to be a bit more upbeat -- thinking that if things were to progress as they did with William, we might actually have a baby by 9AM!
Around 4:30AM, our midwife consulted the on call doctor, and they offered to fully open the bag of waters to see if that helped (the leak had just been small). Being game for anything that might speed up the process, we opted for it. About 20 minutes after that was done, I felt like it was time to push, but I was confused because it was so soon. But, the midwife checked things out and said to go for it. Things seem to go much more quickly with the second baby - she barely had time to get gloves on or lay down the sterile sheets on the bed! Three pushes later, out came the baby! 16 hours after the first tablet, but only 5 hours after labor really started.
The birth process was very similar to what we had in the States, but I suspect that's because my doctor told the staff the American midwife was calling the shots. We consider ourselves quite lucky to have ended up in HYD at the same time as the midwife (who is also a personal friend and independently practicing at the same maternity hospital I chose). Also, we're grateful to have a doctor open to giving the midwife full range and to discussing with us how we wanted things to go. Not all doctors here would give patients or a midwife such freedom.
In short, our local pregnancy to delivery experience was about as positive as it could have been. When inducement became necessary, we were a bit nervous, but the cautious approach taken by the doctor (who, thankfully, agreed that C-sections are only a course of last resort) and the support of the midwife carried through to a healthy baby! I'll post about the post-partum experience later, which adds a bit more local color.
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