Induction stories please?

[SarandrewBean]

Just wondering if you could share your induction story, tomorrow I'm booked in for induction and with this being my and OH's first baby and not really knowing anyone who's had an induction we have no idea what to expect, I do have a few questions though.

Will OH be able to stay with me?

What exactly happens when you arrive at hospital?

What are the chances of induction failing?

Do I take my hospital bag with baby's/my things etc?

These are the main questions really but would like to know how your induction went and how it happened i.e you got to hospital first this happened and then that....

Thank you all in advance, I'm a worrier but I think knowing more will help me so I'm not completely in the dark....

xx

 

[yourstruly10]

Hey there.

I just copy and pasted my birth story here for you. I put it in a spoiler because its long.

My OH was allowed to stay with me the whole time. I think it varies by location though.

Spoiler

At 38 weeks i had my regular doctors appointment. I had, had high blood pressure for the last two appointment but no problems in my blood or urine. At 38 weeks my blood pressure was the highest it had ever been and thats when my doctor decided it was time to have me induced. Since it wasnt a real emergency i was schedual in for september 21rst(38+6 weeks). At this point i got very excited and very nervous. I did some research on being induced and read more negative stories then positive.

So september 21rst came. We had to wait for a phone call from the hospital telling me they were ready and had a room for me. That phone call came at 1pm saying i could come in for 2 pm. I was so incredibly excited. We were going to meet our baby girl soon. At 2pm we arrive in labour and delivery. i was told to get into the hospital gown and that someone would be back to check my cervix to see how far progressed i was and to be put on the moniter to check out how the baby was doing. So 15 minutes later a nurse comes and checks and I am 1 cm dilated and 75% effaced. The moniter shows baby is happy and i am having no contration. i am given an IV and She then tells me that she is going to talk to the doctor about how to induce me and she should be abck in half an hour to 45 minutes. And so we wait.

Around 3:30 the nurse comes back with an induction plan. I am told they will start with a gel that is inserted by the cervix to soften the cervix to make it more favorable for labour. She then tells me only 15% of women go into labour with the first gel and that most women need a second gel six hours later. She tells me once i am contracting regularly and have dilated to 2cm the doctor will come break my waters and get things moving. I will also be given a pitocin drip(fake hormons to speed up and intensify contractions) and a penicilin drip as i am group B positive. So far everything sounds good and I am ready to get this show on the road. So is My husband who is sitting beside the bed very nervous and anxious.

4 pm rolls around and I am given the first gel. It feels very warm inside. Strange sensation. about 4:30 i start feeling tightening from the bottom of my bump working their way to the top. Then they start to hurt. So i ring for the nurse and she check the moniter and sure enough i am contracting about ever 3-4 minutes. She says they will give it another hour then come check me again. So between 4:30 and 5:30 hubby and i talk and he rubs my back. I drink lots and lots of water. Not sure why but i am so so thirsty. The contrations do hurt but are manigable at this point. So far all the bad stories i read dont seem to be happening to me.

Finally 5:30 comes. The nurse comes back and checks me. I am 2.5cm dilated and 100% effeced. She then gets the doctor who preps me to break my water. She shows the my hook they use to break it(it looks like a big crochetting hook). So i am all set up and she start. At first i just felt a ton of pressure. Then all of a sudden i hear a pop and a wooosh. My waters have been broken. I never could have imagined how much fluid there was in there. It just gushes and gushes. The pitocin drip and the penicilin is now started. I am given a large pad and a pair of huge undies and now i am told i am allowed to walk or rock or stand ect. So i decide to try walking. By this time its about 6pm.

So i walk for about 30 minutes and realize I just cant do it. My knees are buckling with ever contraction, I am in more pain then i ever have been in my whole life, and my waters are still gushing with every contration. So hubby and i head back to my room. I callthe nurse in and ask her when i can have my epidural. I am a big baby when it comes to pain and had always planned on having an epidural wheather i was induced or not. She tells me i have to get to 4cm at least. So now i decide to get into the sitz bath. It looks like a giant toilet bowl with water flowing from either side directly onto my belly. I am also given the shower head for the front of my belly. This helps a ton. I feel great sitting in here. 7:30 comes and the nurse wants to recheck me. So i get out and sure enough i am 4.5 cm dilated!! She asks me if i still want the epidural. I dont even have to answer. I think the look on my face must have answered for me. So off she goes to get the anestisiologist.

8pm the anestisiologist shows up. I am sitting on the bed as far back as i can with my legs over the side. i am hugging a pillow and hubby is watching everything the doctor does. He was so interested in everything going on. So the doctor numbs me up a bit. It stings a little but not to bad. I am more afraid of the big needle. Not sure why now. I didnt even feel it. He finishes up and i lay back down. Within half an hour i feel nothing but tiny Bits of pressure. Sweet relief. Travis and i both fall asleep until about 1am.

At 1am i am woken up by a feeling of pressure on my butt i havent felt before. So i wake hubby up and ring the nurse. She tells me its too soon to be feeling pressure as its my first but she will check anyways. Sure enough i am 8cm dilated. Getting excited now. only a few hours to go. At 2pm I tell the nurse i have to push. So she check me again and i am 9.5 cm dilated. She tells me to wait about 30 minutes. then i can push. So i wait the most agonizing 30 minutes of my life. All i wanted to do was push. She comes back and tells me i am 10 cm and baby is starting to crown. This is all going so fast. I start to panic a little now. This is really going to happen. I am having a baby. No going back now.

2:45am the doctor finally arrives and i am told i can push to my heart desire now. I feel the ring of fire as they turned down the epi a bit so i could feel when to push better. 2:55am the doctor tells me this baby is coming but i didnt have time to stretch so she needs to give me an episiotomy or i will tear right through. So she gets the sissor type things at 3;00am and as i am pushing i hear the snip, i dont feel it though thank god! A minute later hr head is out. They suction her mouth and clear out her nose. Now i dont feel contrations at all. I am then told to give a little push and with that little push my beautiful baby girl was born at 3:06am Wednesday september 22, 2010. She was placed directly on my chest for cuddles. a few minutes later i am told another small push. So i do it and out came my placenta. I now feel happy relaxed and so much relief. I am then stiched up while i hold my baby girl. i had a 3rd degree episiotomy.

30 minutes later they ask me if they can take her to clean her up and weight her ect. I have a hard time letting her go but i know it needs to be done. She was given a 9/10 on the appgar scale. She weighted in at 7lb 12oz and is 18.5 inches long. She is 100% healthy.

 

[ltrip84]

Stalking... Would love to know too because I will be induced with my first in 2-3 weeks.

 

[Bunnikins]

This is from my experience last time.

Will OH be able to stay with me? Yes, my husband stayed the whole time from 11am til the next morning when id given birth. Then he left to have a shower/nap (he wasnt made to leave)

What exactly happens when you arrive at hospital? They showed me to my own room and i got settled in, then she explained the procedure to me, examined me vaginally and inserted the pessary (i dont think you need the pessary if ur dilated already). Then attached me to a monitor for bit and kept coming back n checking up on me. I had a bath and we watched TV and waited for labour to begin, which it did... then i was moved to labour suite.

What are the chances of induction failing? I dunno, they did say it might take a few attempts of pessary but luckily mine worked 1st time.

Do I take my hospital bag with baby's/my things etc? Yes, you arent gonna leave without a baby! Also take lots of change for the carpark. Youll need to pay for 24 hours (it was £8 and the machine only took change at our hospital!)

Overall i found it OK but i had nothing to compare it to. I think being constantly monitored (as you are with an induction) appealed to my paranoid nature!

 

[DaisyDust]

I was induced. Depends on the time you go in as to whether OH can stay. I went in at 6pm OH spent the evening there till visitors had to go at 10pm. I had the first gel thing given to me at midnight. They give you up to 3 every 6hrs. Said it usually takes at least 2 go's but I had contractions start at 2am, OH wasn't allowed back until 8am unless I had progressed to 4cm. I was still 1cm at that time.

I don't want to lie to you as id rather have been prepared for it, but inducing is so much more painful than going into labour naturally (not that I've had another to compare it with) That said everyone's labour is different. There were no twinges or mild contractions, it was pow...I'm here! They started by offering me paracetamol (like what?), then pethadine which made me drowsy but worth it just for the relaxant.

When I said it was painful, they said it can't be that bad because I was still talking to them. They were NOT wrong! Broke my waters at 9.30 & that was when the real pain began.

I progressed fairly quickly after that, I think it's the start which is worse than natural, it's like the induction sets off labour pain but it's takes a while for your body to catch up so don't be surprised if you are having almighty pain & they still say 1cm, your body might speed up when it realises what's happening.

If you are planning an epidural...get it known early! I did & they said I had to wait till 4cms. By the time they checked I was 5cms, then they really pissed me off by saying I had to have a blood test before I could have it & it could take over an hr to come back so make sure they make everything clear like that.

Good luck, very exciting.
You're world will be turned upside by tomorrow evening so the last thing you will be thinking about it posting on here but come back & share your story when you can. Would love to know if you just breezed through it...you never know x

 

[baileybubs]

Hi there,

Well my induction wasn't planned it happened (ironically exactly a year ago today!) because my BP was raised and they suspected pre-e so mine was slightly different to a planned induction as it was a little more rushed.
I went in and was given a sweep and the pessary at 6pm, by 8pm my df had to leave as I wasn't on the labour ward yet and was told he'd be called if things started to progress. From what I've heard if there's no rush to start labour they try you with the gel or pessary again after 6 hours but for me they didn't do that even though nothing had happened so at midnight they broke my waters (despite only being 1cm dilated!!) and put me on the syntocinon drip. Now like another PP I'm not gonna lie to you. I was told it was advisable to have the epidural with having the drip as it forces your body into labour unnaturally but I said no, even after much persuasion I said no. An hour and a half later I was having what it describe as one long very painful contraction. It just hit me so hard, there was no build up, no small pain getting stronger, it was just so intense and there was no real break in the contraction either. And I was still only 3cm dilated. I then begged for the epidural and they let me have it coz I was on the drip but then that meant I couldn't move off my bed which I think slowed my labour.
I then progressed ok and my labour was 16 hours in total, but baby's heartrate was a little stressed and after pushing for 45 mins they tried to use forceps and realised she was brow presentation and couldn't turn her (she was facing the wrong way and stuck!!) so I had to have an EMCS. I don't think the induction caused the EMCS but I do wish I could have moved more and maybe she may have moved position but all was ok and that's all that matters.

Definately take your hospital bag with you and be prepared for a long wait because if there's no medical rush they don't like to put you on the drip if you don't need it.

As for induction failing, I'm not sure it's possible for it to fail completely, they will just put you on the drip if the gel and pessary don't kick start things. Then if you fail to progress in labour they will just increase the drip if they need to, I'm not sure what the chances are of EMCS though but honestly they aren't as bad as you'd think if that does happen. It's a little bit scary because it's a rush to get baby out safely but from my experience the medical staff are all really calm and helpful.

I hope it all goes well for you tomorrow, keep us updated and don't worry too much about anything, I actually enjoyed most parts of it so much I'm doing it again soon lol!!!

 

[SarandrewBean]

Hi all!

Well induction sort of but sort of didn't work for me.... I had that weird teabag thing inserted and immediately it started to make my plug come away they inserted it around 1.30AM, sent my partner home at 2AM and woke up at 3AM as waters had broken and they'd noticed the baby had pooed in my waters so for the next 13 hours I was on a drip to bring on contractions/labor as they kept saying how dangerous this was to baby, after 13 hours of being on the drip and getting very very bad contractions was examined and told that I hadn't progressed and was still only 1cm dialated, ended up having a cesarean, which to be honest hasn't been too bad, that was at 8.16pm on Sunday night (6th of April) and got home last night at 10pm, hospital wasn't too keen on me leaving due to amount of medication I'm on and having to have OH inject me with this anti clotting but was determined and so think will heal/feel better at home! So yes, Halle Nova Chapman was born 06/04/2014 at 8.16pm via c-section, weighing 9lb 10oz and was 23" long!

https://www.facebook.com/SaraBennett.0209/media_set?set=a.1474640789414758.1073741845.100006065521253&type=3

 

[baileybubs]

Aw congrats Hun! So glad all went ok in the end, EMCS aren't as bad as you think sometimes are they? Similar happened to me but just glad you and Halle are well!

 

[DaisyDust]

No induction story is the same, just like pregnancies.

But congratulations Sara. All ok in the end & a beautiful baby which all makes it worth it. C-sec wasn't such a bad result with a 9lb 10 baby. Ouch!
I'm expecting a 9 pounder & not looking forward to that push.

Enjoy! X