The NeverEnding Story, Part II

As everyone who's pored over pregnancy books knows, it's a good idea to avoid induced labor. Medically speaking, the first step of intervention can always lead to a domino effect. Spiritually speaking, a baby is meant to be born when they're meant to be born, not when your doctor has a free afternoon and you don't want to miss the Oprah special next week. And if you're a perfectionist like me, you would never choose drugs/intervention of any sort because you want to test your limits in the Natural Birth Challenge.

But sometimes, all pluses and minuses considered, you don't have a choice in the matter.

All of my preparation- the books, the labor classes, the mental preparation, the interviews of absolutely anyone who had given birth and spoke english, the time spent googling 'labor pain how to cope with', and much more, came in absolutely useless because I never went into labor. Our visit to Shaarei Tsedek on day 1 of week 43, intended to be a quick monitoring and a refusal to be checked in since my baby was 'overdue' (but how accurate is the due date anyway?) but otherwise fine, ended in my being admitted to the 'high-risk' ward (do they have to call it that?) until my turn came to be induced. The hospital had their reasons- the ultrasound showed that the baby had low fluid in the womb, after I had spent the last 2 days literally in bed at the advice of a nurse in the overdue clinic who said that I could prevent an induction by laying down to increase the fluid. I also had a big spike in blood pressure, my ankles were enormous, the baby's heart rate actually stopped while they monitored me, and, as the hospital pointed out, I was way, waaay past my due date, which they considered a reason to induce, even without the other risk factors. My husband and I explained to the young, female, non-religious doctor that we understood, but needed to make a phone call to our Rabbi before signing the papers. She looked at us like we had just drank the kool-aid.

We felt that we needed to make the call first, because our Rabbi had advised us to avoid an induction, even after 42 weeks, as long as I was fine and the baby was fine. When my husband called and explained the situation, asking at the end if we should now induce, he also seemed to think we drank the kool-aid and said 'yes, of course!!'

The high risk ward is a mighty boring place to be. I was there alone, and basically spent the night pacing the surrounding halls, speaking on my cellphone to people in America where the hour was not so ridiculous. I kept getting panicked stares from people in the hallway, because most ultra-ultra-pregnant women in the hospital are in the middle of active labor. I tried to give them a look that conveyed 'I wish! I am just a prisoner here until they induce me...'