I told her not to make it too comfortable in there. Either she didn't listen to me, or our progeny is every bit as stubborn as the both of us. I'm betting on the latter.
We had our "past-due" appointment today. No change in dilation from the appointment last week. To reduce the risk of C-Section, not that there's much risk for that at this point, the doctor recommended that we induce--and that we start the process tonight, in the hopes that the baby will be ready to enter the world tomorrow when the doctor is available to deliver.
We drove home and gave everyone the update. Uncle Steve and Grandma and Grandpa were fixin' some eggs and bacon for dinner. Of course, Sam took the opportunity to steal one of their packages of bacon for "dinner". I had a small chicken sandwich. We double, and triple, checked that we had everything. I think we probably brought too much; aside from snacks, clothes and toiletries, we brought our Surfaces, Kindles (readers and tablets), Camera, and the iPad. I was able to talk Sam out of bringing her 3DS.
Getting hooked up
We made it the hospital, on-time I might add, and got checked in. After getting situated in the room the nurses hooked up a pressure monitor to measure contractions, a fetal heartbeat monitor, a blood pressure monitor, and an IV.
I must admit, watching the monitors and seeing the visual representation of what is happening inside Sam, as it happens and she feels it, is allowing me, for the first time to share, just a little bit, of the physical experience of having this tiny life we created inside her.
Amid the various beeps from the machines, and the sad doo-doom sound that the blood pressure monitor makes every time it takes a measurement, there is something oddly comforting being able to hear the baby's heartbeat--a constant throbbing sound at about 140 beats per minute.
And it begins
Finally, after all of the paperwork and hooking up to machines, they gave Sam the first dose of Cytotec around 8pm and explained that she would get it every 4 hours to help soften her cervix and get this show on the road.