Being induced was okay, it was just the rest of it. (Birth Induction)

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	Birth Induction
Date:	10/07/09 (564 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Needed if your baby is a lazy toerag lol

Disadvantages: Natural ways are always best

After reading another review about having births induced it reminded me of my two experiences, which I thought I share with you.

I've had two children and both of the births had to be induced. The first (my son) was a lazy so and so and two weeks after my due date he still hadn't arrived.

So I went into the hospital on the Friday morning and was given a pessary and some sort of medication to take. I can honestly say I have no idea what the tablet was, because by that time I really didn't care, I was just sick and tired of waddling around like an elephant (hmm you'd think I would have remember that before ending up like an elephant anyway!).

The medical staff weren't really that good, they didn't explain anything at all, and I expected everything to happen straight away, and was highly disappointed when I found out afterwards that it still might not work, and it could still take days. During the morning I felt a couple of twinges, but nothing much really, so they decided a second dose was needed. They did this the next morning (Saturday)

This dose got things moving, and the contractions started with a vengeance. This is where things went downhill really, I was moved to the delivery rooms and the hospital midwife went off the call the community midwife who I saw at the pre natal clinics.

Having requested an epidural the hospital midwife then went to call the anaesthetist, because it was a Saturday and they only had weekend cover, they came back and told me it'd be about 30 minutes because he was in theatre. So in the meantime I made do with gas and air, which didn't seem to do anything as far as I was concerned. I've heard people say they felt drunk with it, so obviously I'd drunk too much in my younger days and it had no effect!!

Anyway, about an hour later the anaesthetist turned up and proceeded to do the epidural. I felt a twinge when he was doing it, but at the time I never really thought anything of it. I even recall him saying to the midwife 'why didn't you check first, if I'd have known there's no way I would have done it'. But at the time I was just glad to have got rid of the pain. It turned out I was fully dilated and ready to push the baby out, so doing the epidural could have caused serious damage if a contraction had come along as he was doing it.

The next 'mistake' (or mistake in my book) was that they tried to hold off the birth, by saying I didn't need to push yet, until the community midwife arrive. Now I did like her and really got on well with her, but at that particular time I couldn't care less if Godzilla was in the room, I just wanted to get the birth over and done with. Finally they gave up on her getting there on time, and by this time my son had gone into distress. The midwife emergency bleeped the consultant just in case, and when my son was born he was immediately rushed off because he wasn't breathing. Luckily they got him breathing and he's none the worse for wear now.

You might be wondering why the long winded explanation about the epidural, and what it has to do with inducing births. Well ever since then I have had awful problems with my back, and when it's really bad I struggle to stand for longer than 5 minutes at a time. Even when it's at its best I have a constant ache in my back.

So when I was pregnant the second time, by the time I got to about 36 weeks the pain was getting to much to bear, and the consultant agreed that if my daughter didn't arrive early, they'd induce on the due date. It turned out the due date was a Saturday again, so off I trotted to the hospital and they gave me a pessary again. This time the contractions started straight away, although the midwife insisted they weren't real contractions they were just a side effect of the medication. The on call consultant came along and said, yes the midwife was right, and since it was the weekend and they were short staffed, I might as well go home and come back on Monday.

Well quite frankly I was totally insulted and insisted I knew what a real contraction felt like, and argued against going home. And if anyone knew how much I hate hospitals, you'd realise how convinced I was that I was correct. And it turned out I was, this conversation/debate with the consultant happened at about 10.30, my daughter entered the world at 13:32. Thankfully with no complications and no epidural this time, in fact no pain killers at all.

Summary: Make sure your midwife tells you what you need to know