Yes, you read the title correctly.  I unwittingly bribed my daughter into being born.

A couple of Fridays ago, I was almost a week past my due date and getting more and more nervous about my scheduled induction that coming Monday.  I had been induced before when my labor stalled and really didn’t want to relive the experience.

So after I woke up from a nap that afternoon, I decided to have a little talk with Baby Daisy (her code name). I told her that if she was nice and got things going on her own I would make sure she had a sparkly Halloween costume.  Otherwise, she’d just have a plain ol’ onesie, not even Halloween-themed.  I called my husband to check in on him, told him of the deal I made with Daisy.  I hung up the phone and my water broke.

After I made sure that I had indeed gone into labor, I called my husband, who was pulling into the driveway.  I was laughing hysterically because, I mean…come on…I just bribed my unborn daughter!  And also because I realized I was about to go through childbirth and freaked a little. And I was going to have to somehow come up with a sparkly Halloween costume for an infant.

I still had no contractions, so we waited a while.  I took a shower, got ready (meaning I grabbed a bunch of crap to stuff into my hospital bag that I didn’t really need), spent a little time with my son and ate dinner.  By then I was getting contractions and we decided to head to the hospital.

When we checked in, we were led to the same room where I delivered our son.  And just like with my son, my labor stalled.  The doctor said we could wait until midnight to see if things got going before starting pitocin, but after talking with my husband and doula, I decided I just wanted to get things going instead of freaking out for hours trying to make my body do something that I knew it wouldn’t do.

So I won’t bore you with all the gory details, but pitocin was started around 10:30, really kicked in around midnight, and just after 4 a.m., our beautiful baby girl was born!

Our doula was amazing (you can read about my non-crunchy stance on doulas here), and knew when to be supportive and comforting and when to lay the smack down to get me to focus.  There were times when I didn’t think that I could do it, but with my husbands support (I’m pretty sure I fractured his hand during some of those contractions), and our doula’s coaching, I was able to make it though labor with no other drugs, which made me very happy.

But now the question remains…what will I do for my little girl’s costume?  The tiny infant costumes for sale don’t appeal to me and not a single one is sparkly.  I have something in the works that I hope to share with you soon! Here’s a little sneak peek of the sparkle tulle and sequin extravaganza that is going on between baby feedings:

Stay tuned…