I had GDM with my pregnancy and my baby was measuring on track, so was given the option to induce labour post 38 weeks or wait for spontaneous labour. I chose to induce since my husband is returning to grad school in fall and we wanted a few days together with the newborn at home without needing to attend to other obligations.

My baby was head down since 36 weeks and she was measuring 7lbs 4 oz on her ultrasound at 38 weeks. I had a membrane sweep performed at 38+5 weeks. In the next two days I experienced some spotting, bloody show, some cramping, and increased uterine soreness. I was dilated 3-4cm from 38 weeks and the membrane sweep did not help with progression of dilation.

I was admitted to the labour ward at 39 weeks at 1:30 am - I was waiting for 10+ hours at the hospital waiting for a room to become available. They checked me and discovered at I was already in early labour experiencing very regular but very mild contractions and was now dilated to 4-5cm.

My water was broken at 3:15 am. They monitored me for 45 minutes to see if my contractions would would pick up naturally without medicines. It did pick up, but not significantly. They decided to put me on oxytocin and pitocin to speed up the process. I asked for an epidural to be put in before they started the meds.

The epidural was put in by 5:30 am and was very effective - I did not experience any pain or soreness. The pitocin/oxytocin drip was started at 6:00 am. I progressed to 10 cm by 10:00 am. My blood sugar was measured every hour and was consistently 5.6, which was very pleasing - they needed it to be under 7.2.

At 10:15 am, I started to feel pressure in my butt. I told my attending nurse and immediately two doctors and an additional nurse arrived. I was asked to push. Baby was delivered in 3 pushes in under 5 minutes with no tearing.

I had an excellent delivery and my baby was born healthy, alert and without complications at 10:25 am on September 2nd, measuring 6lbs 10 oz. We discharged from the hospital 24 hours later. Mummy and baby passed all checks. The worst part of the whole process was the waiting for a labour room to free up for more than 10 hours - but mine was an elective process, obviously women who arrived experiencing spontaneous labour or critical situations took precedence before my elective labour induction and low risk pregnancy.