Induction birth story.

So I wanted to share my birth story because I never really see any stories from women who got induced.

So with my first baby I had a horrible labor, we lived an hour away from our hospital, and long story short I ended up having contractions for 3 days before I finally had my son. With my second baby, the last month my blood pressure kept going up and down, but I never got diagnosed with preeclampsia. I was so swollen it hurt to walk, and I kept getting horrible migraines everyday. Finally at 39 weeks my doctor offered to induce me, and I felt so horrible, so I agreed. She had to scheduled and I couldn’t wait. My husband and I got to the hospital at 7:30AM, and we go to our room and start getting me hooked up to all the machines, and we couldn’t find the babies heartbeat. I could still feel him moving like crazy though, so we weren’t that concerned. They had a weird wireless monitor so we used that, which was nice because I could move around and walk around with it on. My doctor came in and said good morning and checked on me. Finally we start the induction, and when we start I’m not dilated or effaced. They start with a gel, and I had to lay down for an hour, and then walk around for an hour. We did the gel a total of 3 times, and I got to 80% effaced and 1 cm dilated. I had slight contractions but could still kinda talk through them. They had me walk around for awhile, so my husband and I walked the hospital. It made the contractions a little stronger but not much. By that point it was 6PM and my mom had joined us. My 2 year old was with my sister in law, and she said she’d keep him overnight but he kept crying for my husband, so I sent my husband home, since my doctor said I probably wouldn’t be having the baby that night. We did a pill next, and I was still at 1cm, and 80% effaced. My nurses came in and said the babies heart rate was going up and down and they wanted me to just lay down for awhile. Well during that hour my contractions picked up a lot, to where I was in A LOT of pain. At 9 PM my nurse came in to check on me, and I asked if I could walk around, which I could because I had that wireless monitor. So I got up and went to the bathroom, and realized it helped a lot to sit on the toilet. So I sat there for awhile and then tried to walk around, but realized I just wanted to sit on the toilet. Looking back that’s what started my transition. They came in at 10PM to check my dilation, and finally I was at 6cm and 100% effaced. They offered an epidural which I said yes to, and they told me it would be about a 20-30 minute wait since it was so late at night. They called my doctor, and she wanted to come in and check on me since the babies heart rate was still so up and down. I called my husband, but my brother in law wasn’t home yet so my husband said he wasn’t able to leave yet. At 10:15 my contractions were almost one on top of the other so they checked me again and I was at 9cm! I remember asking the nurse “just so I can mentally prepare, I’m not getting that epidural am I?” And she laughed and said probably not. A couple minutes later I was like I need to push, and the nurse was like your doctor isn’t here yet, but push if you need to. My doctor came in shortly after and had me push once, then she broke my water. She had me keep pushing. Next thing I know all the nurses pushed my mom out of the way, and I had 6 nurses by my bed and my doctor got in my face and told me “Can you hear your baby’s heart beat? It’s dropped down to 80, you need to get him out with this next push” I tried so hard to get him out but I couldn’t, so they got the vacuum out. My doctor was yelling at me to push as hard as I can, and I had my nurse yelling at me to push, and finally with the vacuum I got him out. He wasn’t crying at first, but finally he started crying and they let me do skin to skin for the first hour and a half. Because of the vacuum I tore all the way up and all the way down, but very lightly. I still had to get stitched. My son was officially born at 10:38PM, and was okay as soon as he was born.

Ultimately I’m so happy I gave birth without any pain medication, as that was my goal, but it was so hard in the moment. I wouldn’t get induced again, because we were almost considering a c section. But I’m so thankful my body kicked in and I had him, and he was okay.

Big brother loves him so much!!

My chubby boy today! 7 weeks old.