43 hours in labor

My story is similar to some of you here; 41 weeks and no sign of labor. 0cm dilated and a thick cervix! I was at the LR on 21st Aug by 6.30am.

However before we can start anything the doc realizes that he is no longer in position! This means that we have to wait a couple of hours for another doc to join and aid the physical repositioning (apparently a painful process). To avoid it, I then try different techniques to move my baby's hands away. By the time doc re confirms he is thankfully head down! I finally get some food to eat as c section is temporarily ruled out.

Then by 2 pm; begins work on my cervix. They put a tablet in my cervix which is supposed to dissolve over 4 hours. 6.30pm and my cervix shows no sign of thinning. Then she inserted Cervidel which works over 12 hours; slowly thinning the cervix with mild contractions. Although it was mild; they were irritating enough to take my sleep off.

Next morning 6.30am I'm finally hoping that it's done the job. But dilation was still a joke; 24 hours in and I am - 1cm dilated!! However I was ready to now be induced. Although open to epidural; I wanted to experience the pain for as long as I could. Around 9 am we begin the pitocin dosage with gradual increments. The contractions get more and more painful ranging between 2 to 5 mins. After what seemed like ages; around 1pm I cave in to the pain and ask for epidural. The anesthesiologist gives me a higher dosage knowing my low tolerance for pain. Ladies; epidural is magic! I have never experienced that type of relief ever; also since I had developed pain in my ligaments for majority of my pregnancy. 5 months of pain and all gone albeit temporarily. The doc then checked my dilation and I was still at 3cm!

The next couple of hours I had some rest and contractions happened along with some progress in dilations. By 6pm I was only at 6 cm. They decided to break my water to speed up the process. However soon after; I regained sensation for the left half of my body. This was the most terrible part of my labor.

Half of my body is numb and the other half is now faced with severe contractions at a much higher pitocin level. I tried self increasing the epidural dose but that only further numbed the right side. The anesthesiologist reluctantly showed up 2 hours later and repositioned the IV to inject a stronger dose. This effect wore out again in an hour. 9.30 pm and I'm at 9cm dying with pain. I was ready for a c sec as I could no longer handle this. However docs wanted me to try as much as I could so as to go natural.

The next few hours were the worst as my cervix was dilating really slowly and I was blanked out with pain; increasing epidural doses to no vain. The anesthesiologist could not show up again. They changed the dosage type which reduced the pain by a bit. My husband and I decided that we would insist on a c sec if I hadn't entirely dilated by 1 am.

1.15 and 10cm dilated finally! I am now pushing with just the energy of an icicle as I had nothing but clear soup all day long. Thankfully here I don't feel a thing as epidural worked effectively with just the feeling of a mass that needs to be pushed out. My pushing went smoothly but towards the end his heart beat was going down. So we ended up going for the vac pump for the last mile. His umbilical cord was around his neck which was then cut off without any further complications. After 43 hours; at 2am on Aug23rd my baby was finally born!

8.6lbs and 21 inches; still can't imagine I had a natural and I owe it to the epidural.