Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Wives of old...

Well, today is I-day. The induction is scheduled for this afternoon, so watch this space for updates.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share my view of all of the old wives tales of ways to induce labor. Over the past three weeks, I have tried just about every one, and here are my highly scientific results.

Long walks -- good for your health, good for making you feel like your basketball-size abdomen weighs about 50 pounds more than usual. End result: not contraction-inducing

Climbing stairs -- again, good for your health, bad because you cannot see your feet. End result: not contraction-inducing

An "early night with the hubby" -- good for your self-esteem and your marriage. End result: not contraction-inducing

Washing windows -- come on! This was only good for Steen, as he didn't have to wash them. I realized that I detest washing windows. End result: not contraction-inducing

Eating a hot curry dish -- tastes great, even when the hottest curry you can get in Sweden is only mildly spicy. Still, I wonder if I ate the right kind of curry... should it be Indian curry, Thai curry, Chinese curry??? End result: not contraction-inducing

Drinking citrus juices -- I love pineapple juice, so I definitely didn't mind. But end-result: not contraction-inducing

Meditation and visualisation -- I suspect these are more useful during labor, but I have tried them anyway. End result: not contraction-inducing

Note, therefore, that while my scientific experiment has been enlightening, it was not successful. I have had contractions on and off (about three an hour) for the past 10 days or so, but they get nowhere near the "3 contractions every ten minutes" required by the hospital to be classified as being in "active labor".

There are a few suggestions that I wasn't able to try, including raspberry leaf tea (which I could not find here), downing a serving of castor oil, and rowing in a row boat (are you crazy???).

So now we'll go with the induction. I'm nervous, excited, pensive, and full of thousands of thoughts. See you!

1 comment:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.