Induction? No thanks. (Birth Induction)

Member Name: Claribella

Product:	Birth Induction
Date:	05/11/08 (189 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Is great if your baby is in distress.

Disadvantages: Painful, long and unnatural

When you are expecting your first child you secretly think it will arrive bang on your due date even though statistics prove that they never do and everyone tells you that you will probably be late. I was one of these mums but my due date came and went and before I knew it I was 9 days over due with no signs of the baby coming anytime within the next few weeks.

I had a membrane sweep at my midwife appointment which is where she puts her fingers around your cervix to try and get labour started. She wasn't very hopeful that this would do anything as she informed me I wasn't dialated at all and the head was really high up. Even so I still expected her to be seriously wrong and thought by the time I got home I would be in labour but of course that just didn't happen.

On the 12th day of being overdue I went to the hospital to be induced which was like having a dentist appointment except it was an appointment to have my baby which was very bizarre. I waved goodbye to my mum telling her very confidently that Id have my baby in my arms by the end of the day. No one had explained it could be a long old process.

After waiting for hours on my bed I was hooked up to a monitor then I had a pessary pushed up inside of me (it looked like a dishwasher tablet) and I had to lie on my side for half an hour before being hooked up to the monitor again. It turned out that my baby really didn't want to come out and I had four pessaries (which is the max you can have. If labour didn't start after this I would have had to have a c section) over three days. I found it so difficult because I spent so much time hooked up and having to lie on the bed for ages. It drove me mental because I am usually pretty active.
When I eventually did start having contractions they just came on very suddenly with no build up and they were very long without much time in between to recover. This went on for a few hours before I eventually couldn't take it anymore and asked for pethadine.
Hours later the midwife came in and checked me and I wasn't even a centimetre dilated. This went on for hours and eventually I got to three centimetres dilated and was taken to the labour ward where I had an epidural straight away because I was in so much pain. After a while I was hooked up to a drip to speed up the labour which happens a lot during induction.
Anyway after 20hrs of labour I had my son safely (arriving 15days past his due date!) without any forceps, ventouses or c-sections. Ive heard that this doesn't happen very often when you are induced because most people opt for the epidural and you literally can't feel your legs or the contractions so you don't know when to push and where to push from.
Personally I hated being induced and didn't realise until after I had my son that I could have turned it down which is what I did with my second son. They did try to push me into it and a few people accused me of putting my baby at risk but I was sent up the hospital to see a consultant and I had a scan to make sure everything was ok with the baby.

Having had a natural labour with my second son I would say that the pain at the beginning of the induction was far greater than the pain at the end of my natural labour.

There are 'positives' to an induction. Firstly if your baby is in distress and it is safer outside the womb than inside.
Secondly I can see for some people how it is nice to know when your child will arrive into the world (although in my case this didn't happen) especially if you are a person that likes to plan.

Summary: Know your rights! Dont do it if you can help it!