of pytocin and books
with all four of my babies, labor did not progress on its own as nature intended, resulting in four induced labors. the first took forever and ever. with bekah, my second child, the doctor had anticipated that my body would produce its own pytocin. twas not to be...after bekah's father and i spent the night in the hospital watching the graph document contractions that were getting further apart and weaker rather than closer together and stronger, my doctor showed up about 8:30 or 9 a.m. and admitted that i was one of those mothers whose labors were repeatedly stalled, and ordered the pytocin drip. i was dilated to something like 3 cm at the time.

unlike my first labor, however, this time the drip did its work in good time, so that at about 11:00 a.m. i was telling my then boyfriend to "please get your fucking hand off my arm," and complaining that i needed to push. he ran for the nurse. she obligingly examined me and declared that i was at about 5, or "halfway there."

this news made me cry, remembering how long it had taken with john, my oldest son, to progress from 5 to 10 cm. [try 12 hours or so]. i said, "it's going to be hours!" and i was in despair. next contraction. i said, "i really feel like i have to push so bad," so obediently bekah's father again fetched the nurse, who with good cheer said, "we'll examine you more often now that you feel like - oh YoU DO HAVE TO PUSH!" i had gone from 5 to 10 cm in 5 minutes. it was time to get into the delivery room and have a baby. :) Bekah was born at 11:24 a.m.

what the hell has any of this have to do with books? you may ask...well, the nurse with the next baby and maybe even the one after that told me i just needed a "whiff" of pytocin to get that baby out. and i've been studying The Artist's Way for only a week and 2 days. i've missed my morning pages once, and didn't make my artist date. nonetheless, today i have been struck, inspired, started plotting and peopling the novel i will write in november as a participant in NaNoWriMo.

so my thinking is i only needed a "whiff" of The Artist's Way to get those contractions up and running. i mean those chapters prepped and plotted. or something like that.

whatever works. yesterday at this time my november novel was a big blank piece of paper; today it has characters, a title, a theme...well we'll see if a book is actually born from this, but it does feel good.
NaNoWriMo
- posted by barbara @ 10/24/2003 09:54:00 PM