The contractions stopped as soon as the Pitocin did.
This was a little unexpected, but not surprising given the way things have been going. It's disappointing that Sam's body has still not entered the "transition phase", despite the fact that the contractions were at the right intensity and intervals.
Before the doctor arrives, the nurses come in and very cautiously start asking if they could prep Sam for Caesarean. "The doctor hasn't ordered anything, but just in case", they said. Every time they say it, they whisper the word "Caesarean" like it could summon a demon or something.
We had never planned for anything other than ordinary labor and delivery. With the way this has been going, Sam and I discussed, and came to terms with, this possibility yesterday. We were actually surprised that it wasn't on the agenda at the beginning of the day.
Sam tells them to go ahead.
A little while later, the doctor arrives while Sam is in the restroom and starts talking to me about her thoughts. She tells me she was originally going to recommend a Caesarean when she thought this our first baby. Knowing it's our second, she thinks it would be better to start up the Pitocin again, and give it another shot. I explain to her that I think we'd rather not do that given that we're more than 24 hours after the water is broken and in spite of what looked like progress, we've had no changes on the Pitocin after being on it for another 14 hours.
Sam comes back into the room as I tell the doctor that we really don't want a Caesarean, but at this point, it really feels like it's the only way forward. The doctor quickly summarizes her position for Sam, and goes over the risks for each option. The risks are basically infection and excessive blood loss, for both options.
Sam quietly tells the doctor given that the risks are the same, she wants to do the Caesarian. The doctor offers a compromise. "How about we start the Pitocin up again and I'll go back to my office and lock up, then come back here. Should be about two hours and we can see where we are and decide about the Caesarean then?". She then confers with the nurse about restarting the Pitocin. The nurse tells her Sam's been off of it for about an hour, so they would have to start it at the beginning again and it would take a few hours to get her back up to the max dosage.
The doctor looks a little deflated. We know she's looking out for what's best for Sam and the baby. I appreciate what she's trying to do, and more importantly we agree with her on principal. But this is the first time she's seen us, and she hasn't gone through any of this with us over the last three days.
I tell her again, "We don't want this to avoid normal labor, we've done that before, and we wanted to do it again. We've been doing this for three days and Sam's body hasn't made any progress on its own. We prepared ourselves yesterday for this possibility. We're OK with it given that there is a real concern about infection, even with antibiotics, and the risks are the same between the two options." , I tell her.
She looks at Sam.
Sam looks at the doctor and says: "I want the Caesarean".