I wanted to post my induction story because I know I was extremely nervous before mine, and hopefully this will calm some nerves!!

So little one was a couple days before her due date and measuring 8 pounds on her ultra sound. My midwife was afraid of her passing meconium in the womb if she went too far past her due date, so she told me to call if I went over. Two days after my due date, I called and they scheduled my induction for that Monday (three days later).

We go in at 6 am and they start me on pitocin. I had already been having lots of contractions since week 36, but nothing productive and I had been at 1 cm dilated for weeks. They started me on the lowest dosage and progressively upped it as my contractions got more regular.

Well. I was in the “normal/high” range for amniotic fluid, so basically baby could float around forever and never run out of space. She wasn’t pushing on my cervix, so I just wasn’t really dilating. It took from 6 am until 6 pm to dilate to 2 cm. 😬 luckily, the contractions weren’t unbearable. I had to breathe through them as they progressed, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

So finally at 6 pm I’m dilated just enough for my midwife to come break my water. When I say it was niagra falls, omg it was worse than niagra falls. I completely filled ALL the towels they had brought in like 5 minutes, and let me tell you there were a lot of towels. It even got on my socks because they couldn’t get towels down there fast enough.

About an hour later the contractions hurt so bad I was crying. I tried to tough it out, but if I was gonna go through twelve more hours of labor I just wasn’t going to make it. So I asked for an epidural the second I was 3 cm. Let me tell you that thing was heavenly. I fell asleep off and on for the rest of my labor. I think from a combination of already laboring for 13 hours and all the things they were putting in my body, I was exhausted.

4 hours later I was ready to push, and the nurse had me do some pushing before the midwife got there so that her head would be in my birth canal further. When my midwife got there, I didn’t have to do much more. I pushed for one hour, and only because my contractions decided to slow down and we had to wait for a while between each one to be able to push.

I was in labor for 16 hours altogether, my little Rosie was born at 12:37 am, and that moment is one I will replay in my head for the rest of my life.

Good luck to all you induction mamas!! I promise, it isn’t so bad.