What to expect when getting induced??

Question

I get induced in a week and I am TERRIFIED lol. I’m a first time mom so I really don’t know what to expect. I hear all these horror stories and it gets me sooo nervous!! I’ve listened to some people talk about their experiences with the balloon breaking their water and it hurting like hell, the catheter, the iv, epidural.. etc. 🥲 How was y’all’s induction?

Answer

If it isnt completely medically necessary i wouldnt get induced. The more medical interventions you need during your labor the greater your chances are of needing more medical interventions. For example if you have an induction without pitocin to start with and you get an epidural theres a chance youll need pitocin to keep your body going. If you need pitocin theres a good chance they will make you labor on your back. If you labor on your back youre at more risk for a cervical lip (making the process longer), tearing, and needing assistance (vacuum, forceps, emergency csection). Epidurals are also known to create heart rate fluctuations with baby which they can try to rush your labor to keep baby “safe”. If your body is truly not ready for birth, nothing will work. Forcing your body to try to get ready wont work and you can have failure to progress which will cause a csection.

Answer

I’ve been induced 3 times and never had an epidural, in fact I only had gas for one. Contractions can be more intense (so they tell me) and come quicker. I never had a balloon to break my waters, I’ve had them hook it to puncture it and twice it broke by itself after induction. My longest labour was 5.5 hours and I had 2 babies facing up. Don’t stress or panic that will only make it worse. Go with it, at the end of the day you’ll have a little baby to love. Oh and stop reading birthing stories!!

Answer

I got induced with my son. They first placed a cervidil in to soften my cervix. Tbh it didnt do a whole lot. It did get me to dilate like 0.5cm lol and did trigger contractions for me. I was sitting having lunch the next day, about to go in to L&D to get checked and to get a new cervidil placed but as i was eating lunch my water broke! We rushed in to L&D because i was GBS positive. At this point they removed my cervidil and added the gel because my cervix was still hard and high up. Gel helped a tiny bit but not enough. I was having painful contractions at that point due to the cervidil and gel. 6 hours later they started me on oxytocin to speed things up. That caused horrible conractions. I got to 4cm and got my epidural, it worked briefly but stopped working. A few more hours passed and i was stuck at 5cm dilated. Would not progress. They let me labour for 36 hours. I eventually got to 8.5cm but my cervix was still partially hard and high up showing signs that baby wasnt in the right position so it was a mutual agreement to do an emergency csection. I had been in labour for 36 hours. I was exhausted and there was no guarantee id even have a successful vaginal birth... so i didnt reallt wanna go on and labour for 2 more hours only to be rushed in anyway for a csection. It was a good call to do the csection because my pubic bone is an odd shape and baby was stuck in my ribs. I would never have had a vaginal birth.

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I’ve had two inductions and will most likely have another one with this one. Both my experiences were wonderful. I got the epidural pretty much right away and didn’t have any complications.

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I agree with some comments, if there isn’t a medical reason to get induced please don’t do it. I’m also a ftm, I was induced and my labor was very long and painful.

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Just saying. If water break on its own, contractions hurt a lot also.
The difference with induction is that it all is forced to speed up a bit, the pain doesn't need to be worse... But if it happens more often, it feels worse🤷‍♀️
You can ask for apin meds if you feel you need it

Answer

Alright I had one horrendous induction and one good one. I'll tell you my good one. I had the Foley ball you are talking about. Yes it hurts to get it done, but I've also done cervadil and I recommend it. Foley makes you feel those early contractions which is a good thing. I was able to adjust to the feeling instead of like cervadil where I feel like I went 0-100 mph all the sudden. The Foley ball generally falls out when you are about halfway open which is good. Iv sucks but is necessary. Epidural is not the only pain management available. Ask your doc about your options. Catheter is going to be the least annoying part of this whole process and it felt good to have that relief. I swear I had to pee so much before that. I also recommend asking your doc if the hospital has a birthing peanut and if they don't, go get one. They are so nice. It helps prop your legs open a little bit. At some point, you're going to want that.

Answer

Not a fun time. Do you need to be induced, is it medically necessary? because if not dont do it. The contractions on pitocin are no joke ask for an epidural.

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I mean, birth with medical intervention at all includes many of the things you listed. My sister labored for 30 hours and her water broke on its own. It hurt. She had the iv, epidural, and catheter. No induction meds but it’s not like it probably would’ve been too much different for her as her contractions were 5 mins apart and strong from labor start

Answer

I just got induced about 2 weeks ago. I got a balloon catheter and they placed a cervidil as well. The balloon catheter placement was NOT pleasant. It was honestly worse than I thought it was gonna be 🥴 but having the balloon in wasn't that uncomfortable, just weird to walk/pee with lol my balloon never fell out, it stayed but when the dr removed it (10hrs of labor later 🙃) it had dilated me to 5cm, so it did its job. Contractions weren't terrible so I was able to get some sleep. After that I got moved to a labor room and took some dilaudid. Slept through that as well. After the dilaudid wore off, the dr came & broke my water. I waited a few hours to see if I thought I needed the epidural. I absolutely did 😂 got the epidural around 7cm and slept through a lot of labor until dr came to check me. I was at a 10 and baby was ready to come!! Pushed for about an hour and he was born!! Overall, I was also terrified to get induced and did everything I could to start labor on my own, but baby was staying put. I was so miserable pregnant that I would go through the induction again lol

What to expect when getting induced??

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