I went in with barely one cm of dilation and no effacement and a very long, but soft cervix. I am now 80-90% effaced and have a solid cm of dilation. That doesn't seem like much, in some ways, but I was really pleased and so was my doctor. All that work of breathing and the pain were worthwhile and productive, so I feel really positive about it. If I had dilated some more, I'd have probably kept on going, but the fact that I hadn't meant we got sent home. And as tired as I was that was a good thing.

I had insulin shock the night before because I stayed up way too late doing way too much in preparation and burned my sugars out. So I hadn't had lots of sleep. At the end of the day, I was sleeping between the intense contractions and waking up to relax through them and going back to sleep.

The doctor has given me sleeping medication, so I won't be tempted to do that again and will be better rested for tomorrow's induction attempt. At this point, I've only got to dilate, so the workload left is that much less.

The doctor gave us the option of coming in today to try it again and we talked about it and as excited as we are to see this girl, I wanted to see if the pitocin would get my body going and send me into spontaneous labor. I've been having the bloody show thing since yesterday and quite a bit today...say good bye to that mucous plug folks (and your lunch if you read that while eating).

The reason for waiting is that we hope that I will go naturally between now and tomorrow because with the pitocin, there's no option for using a wide variety of coping methods...you get the chair, the bed, and standing between the bed and the chair -- which isn't much, when 2 of 3 of those involve aggravating the sciatica I've got. I've been having a number of good contractions today and have had a few wake me up from a deep sleep, so Mike and I are going to go walking to see what we can push my body into. Mike mentioned "shopping" and I certainly hope he meant it. I'm feeling a rabid urge for Oshkosh.

I am very glad that I took today off because I really needed the time to rest. My belly's sore and I have slept a good chunk of this morning and all of last night.

Aside from that, I wanted to mention things I learned.

1. Standing up or sitting on the toilet can give me violent contractions almost immediately.
2. I like hand massage a LOT.
3. I like cold compresses applied to my head, neck and legs.
4. Birthing partners should NOT ask their laboring women to lift up their legs to be rubbed with said compress, but rather assume that they'll have to bend over.
5. I like cold when I'm in labor. I like the face spritz I bought at the Body Shop, in addition to the cold compress of a wet washcloth. In fact, I think Mike should dunk the darned thing in its own cup of ice water next time.
6. I think I'll wear an old big shirt for labor and a pair of bikini underwear if I have to be induced because maternity underwear has to be rolled down below the belly and it bunches and feels like shit.
7. I like standing up leaning against Mike as a favorite position. For future reference, we will experiment with that some. I liked holding onto him and smooshing my face against him while I thrashed through the contractions. He smelled good and comforting and being able to hug him hard when it hurt was comforting to me.
8. During induction, ask the nurses to move the monitors a lot, especially if you're diabetic. You bruise after a while and moving them around a lot reduces that.
9. Ice chips don't do a thing for me unless they're in water I can drink.
10. Loreena McKibben and Talking Heads are inappropriate music for labor -- Loreena singing about a woman who gets raped and killed sucks and Talking Heads requires too much head banging to be useful in labor.
11. Mike is the best partner in the whole world.