Hospital Stay

As most of you know, last Thursday I was hospitalized as I was about to be 39 weeks.  I went for my appointment in the morning and the doc started asking questions about how big Matthew was when he was born (8.2 pounds) and talking about how this baby seemed rather large too. He decided to do an ultrasound to see what it said the weight was. The ultrasound is approximate and could be a pound less or even more but most often it's less, if anything. It said the baby was 8.5 pounds but, like I said, could be less (or more, eek!). So, the doc recommended that instead of waiting another week to ten days for the baby to get even that much bigger, I should be hospitalized later that day to start induction the next morning.  He said if we waited, the baby could get too big and cause problems in a natural delivery and it was to help avoid an emergency c-section if there were complications.  I was kind of excited and in shock at the same time but luckily I had a few hours to go home, wrap up some loose ends, talk to my mother in law (who was already there with Matthew while I was at the appt) and talk to Dani.

Day 1 hospitalization:. I went home and started getting everything ready and then I was just doing what I could to pass the time before it was time to go in. I was pretty excited thinking that I could have my baby the next day or at least the day after. I got to the hospital and didn't get all settled in after paperwork and all until around 2:30pm. There are no private maternity rooms in the public hospitals here in Costa Rica but I was fine with that because I have already had a baby here and know how it is. I'm sure to most Americans in the US it sounds just horrible to be in a huge room with 14 beds (there were only about 8-10 women at any given time) but for me, it really wasn't that bad. In fact, Dani was working and visiting hours are only from 11am-noon and 4pm to 5pm so it would've been pretty lonely if I had been in a room alone. I had a book but just couldn't focus on reading it knowing that I might actually have my baby the next day. Just too much excitement to focus on reading. I met other women in there that were being induced or were hospitalized because they were already 41 weeks and they were being monitored before being sent to induction.  There were also women who were in the early stages of labor and women who had just come out of the delivery room with their baby. Quite a mix of stuff going on in that room, but everyone was so nice and I made a few friends in there. It felt weird though because all the women in the "induction" situation, were almost 41 weeks along or past 41 weeks and it was starting to get more urgent for them to get those babies out. My case was weird because I would just tell people that no, I'm about to be 39 weeks but my baby is just big so they decided to induce me. I wasn't having contractions (other than the false kind that don't hurt and I had them for a while now) like many of them or other pains. I felt like I was supposed to be "sick" and ailing like the others but I was just there hanging out! We had a group of 4 of us women that were hoping to get labor started as soon as possible so we would go on walks around the hospital together since that's a tried and true way of getting the baby to move down and help contractions along. Of course it was fun talking with the other new mothers and seeing their little newborns in their first day of life. Also in the public hospitals here, there is no "newborn nursery" and the babies always stay with the mother from the time they're born and cleaned up which I think is the best way for me personally.