Got up early to take Yasmina to the hospital for 9am this morning. I’ve just come back home quickly to have a little time to myself before I return. It already feels like it’s been a long day, and labour hasn’t even started yet.
Here in France they will not let a pregnancy go beyond 5 days after term. In Yasmina’s case following a scan on Monday, they reduced that because there is not a lot of extra amniotic fluid and so the risk to the baby of constriction in the umbilical cord on natural birth is increased. Therefore this morning the appointment was for hormones to encourage the cervix to dilate since it wasn’t dilated at all. Yas was on a monitor all morning but still her contractions are too far spaced out and irregular.
So I’m waiting to find out if the cervix has started to dilate to see if the second phase of other medication to encourage contractions will happen. It could be that overnight nothing will happen in which case tomorrow will see more “encouragement” followed by the chance of a caesarian on or before Friday.
Yasmina is doing fine and is in her room in maternity where I am paying over 4€ a day (this may or may not be refundable via our medical insurance) just for her TV to work. The state have a massive hole in the health budget, but TV rental is a high margin operation! They should rent out Internet access too. Modern mums would love to be online I’m sure, and they could fleece them for even more per day.
13/10/2005 at 2:57 pm
We’re all crossing our fingers, feet, knees, toes, ears…anything we can find to cross…so that this all goes smoothly.
Fella
13/10/2005 at 4:14 pm
Good to hear it. I’m growing impatient with all the waiting. There will be another update tonight, I hope it will be with news of the birth. I fear however that a caesarian tomorrow is the most likely option; that is the opinion of Yasmina’s doctor who has followed her pregnancy since the third month and visited her this morning.
14/10/2005 at 8:35 am
It’s the same in this country now (UK); they have Patientline units above every bed, where you have to purchase a card to watch TV and use the telephone.
I was in hospital for a week before I had my baby (three days late). They tried to induce me twice and eventually gave me a Caesarean, and I’m not lying when I say that it was almost entirely painless. GET THE CAESAREAN!
14/10/2005 at 9:11 am
Hi Rachel,
The thing with the French medical system is that there is not really anything like “elective caesarian” as they really try hard for natural birth. Possibly this is due to the increased risk of infection after any surgery however trivial. The US however are hot on elective caesarians, perhaps because they let the responsability lie with the patient.
Do any UK hospitals offer Internet access? I know my wife would love to be able to write email and check email at least.
Thanks for dropping in,
-Fruey