A few days passed, and I had to go back to the hospital for yet another check-up on Friday the 13th. This was my 36-week ‘check-up’ and they referred me to a doctor and not the midwives. I knew at that moment that there wasn’t any way they would let me carry Frankie to term. The one time I go to an appointment and this is where the doctor told me that they were inducing me within the next 3 days! She wanted me induced on Saturday, but thank God they didn’t have any spaces available for an induction. I was not mentally prepared (plus we didn’t have a car seat yet – thought we had another 3-4 week to go) for having a baby THAT soon. They booked me in for induction on the Monday. I didn’t have a birth plan typed up, no conversations had been had with any midwives about what I wanted. I wanted a natural drug free birth, but that wasn’t going to happen seeing as though they were already using a drug to induce labour.

During the pregnancy, I was a part of a Facebook group about mastering a pain-free childbirth. I watched a lot of the teaching videos about how to go about the birthing process and how it can be a pain-free, positive experience. It is absolutely fantastic and the women in the group are great Godly women and are so so encouraging. I messaged the group on the Friday asking for prayers that Frankie would be delivered safely and she would be absolutely perfect in regards to size and everything the doctors need for a healthy baby. I hadn’t even finished watching all of Karen’s videos, so was freaking out a little about it all and was wanting to binge watch the rest of the teachings, but that didn’t happen. I trusted in God and myself that this would be a pain-free, safe and positive birth. I read ‘Supernatural Childbirth’ by Jackie Mize about 5 times throughout the pregnancy as well. This book is a must if you are pregnant!

So, it was a very busy, emotional weekend. I felt like an absolute failure that I couldn’t give my baby girl what she needed to grow properly (even though there wasn’t anything I could’ve done to change anything). Lots of praying happened over the weekend that Frankie would grow and be a healthy baby girl. I was told if she didn’t make it to 2.5kgs (5.5 lbs) when born, she would need to be in the NICU.

Monday came and I spent the day knowing that I was going to be induced at 8 pm that night. I tried to go about the day as normal, yet still knowing that by the end of the week, Frankie Rose would be with us. Jacob went to work as normal and we went to the hospital later that evening. As they needed to monitor me, midwives were coming in telling me that part 1 of the induction (involving a cooks catheter – google cooks Cervical ripening balloon catheter if you really want to know how it happens…) would take quite a long time. It would be put in at 8:15 pm and then 12-18 hours later, they would remove it, break my waters and start the synthetic oxytocin to get my contractions started and labour going. I wasn’t to expect her to come until late Wednesday if not Thursday.

So, they did the procedure, took me to the room to sleep for the night, sent Jacob home and told him to back at 8 am the next morning. I prayed my little heart out when he left that tomorrow would be a smooth day with no complications and my baby would be born perfectly healthy. Well, that didn’t happen. Exactly 3 hours after they put the balloon in (11:15 pm), my waters broke completely by themselves! The midwives couldn’t believe it (neither could I). I rang Jacob, told him to come back to the hospital as things started moving along quicker than expected. Midwives kept asking me if I was having contractions or any pains – in which my response was ‘No, I’m just having what feels like period pain’. I assumed because I had 180ml of water within me, it was just the uncomfortableness of that.

Down to the birth suite I went with my bible, supernatural childbirth book, a stash of snacks to last me at least 3 days and the UE Boom. The midwives put the CTG machine on me to monitor Frankie’s heart rate plus my contractions that I didn’t actually know were contractions.

The midwife at one point asked how I felt, I once again repeated the whole period pain thing.. to which her response was ‘they are actually contractions and they are quite strong!’ I was blown away (not because I didn’t trust God to have a pain-free childbirth but because I didn’t expect contractions to feel like that). They did a check, and I was only 3 cms dilated.

They started the synthetic oxytocin via IV and just did their thing. I was able to talk, laugh, breathe and walk through each contraction as they were just like period pain. When they got intense, I just relaxed my body and took deep breaths. Around 4 am Tuesday morning, the midwife commented that when people have the IV Oxytocin, they generally ask for an epidural when the dosage gets to 8ml an hour. I asked her how much I was getting, and I was already at 8ml and doing just fine. She couldn’t believe how well I was handling everything. After a few hours my contractions were coming on fast and strong, but then subsiding – not painful but intense period cramps. I would have 3-4 really intense contractions on top of each other, and then nothing for 10 minutes. I tried pretty much every option of getting comfortable that was allowed, other than the tub. After using the toilet, I found that sitting on the gym/exercise ball was the best position for me. So I spent quite a lot of time on the ball. They gave me the option of trying some gas as well, so I agreed to this. Well, my body certainly didn’t! For the next 30-40 minutes, I had waves of nausea and vomiting. Fun times.