My in-depth induction story (long)

I’ve seen a lot of moms concerned with induction on here or asking for stories so I thought I’d share mine.

July 16th I was scheduled for an induction at 40+2 for 8am. I went in terrified because not only did I not want to ever induce but I had only read horror stories. At 10am, after filling out paperwork, getting dressed and getting hooked up to an IV, they gave me my first quarter of a cytotec oral pill. They told me I’d take a piece every 2 hours all the way up until 8 total. From there the plan was that they would check my cervix and then probably be able to administer pitocin. That confirmed for me I was gonna have one of those ftm 40 hour ordeal induction stories.

At 6 pm after taking my 4th pill I was in so much pain. Instead of contracting, break, contracting, break, it was more alternating between intense contracting to mild contracting. I remember looking up at my husband from my fetal position and saying, “I was told there would be breaks!!” They decided to stop giving me more pills and to just watch what my body would do on its own. At 7 pm the shift change happened and my night nurse wanted to check me because of how much pain I was in. I was only 2cm 😱 she asked if I wanted an epidural and I said no way because I didn’t want to stall the process anymore than it was already dragging. She finally convinced me to take a small dose of pain meds through my IV drip. That was amazing because it didn’t take the pain away completely but it eliminated the in between mild contractions which having that break made it SO much easier to breath through the big “real” ones.

By 11pm the pain meds wore off and I started having contractions that I couldn’t breath through and went back to having zero breaks in between. My nurse checked me and I was STILL only 4cm. My nurse asked if I wanted my epidural and I said no. (I wanted to make it to at least 6cm) My nurse looked at me and told me that the idea of epidurals stalling labor is false and that if I’m in such crippling pain, my stubbornness was probably only causing more problems. (She said it nicer than that 😆)

She convinced me and by midnight I had my epidural. It did take two tries to get it in but the worst part of it is the numbing shot they give first but I wanted the relief SO badly that anything they did to me didn’t matter at that point. Epidurals are a gift from god, 10/10 would recommend.

They turned off the lights and told me to try to sleep. I couldn’t sleep because despite still being able to move my legs, the heaviness and numbness was unsettling plus the blood pressure machine was scheduled to go off every 15 min and would wake me up.

At 3am my nurse comes in to check me and I’m, no joke, at 10 cm. She called my doctor who arrived by 3:30 to assess me. She broke my water and said we just needed to wait for the baby to move down to begin pushing. They gave me a peanut ball in between my legs to help but it didn’t do anything.

At 5am they had me start pushing just to see if I can get her to move down. It was just my labor nurse and husband in the room at that point which was a relief because, y’all, I hadn’t pooped in 3 days and I got all three days worth of poop out in those next 2 hours of pushing. 😂😂😂 the three of us laughed about it and for the moms that are afraid of pooping in front of others, it’s seriously not a big deal.

At 7am my doctor came in to see the progress because she had a scheduled c section for 7:30 at another hospital and wanted to see if she was postponing it. She decided she was, went and made a few calls then came back to assist with the last of the pushing and my baby girl was born at 7:20am July 17th. Even with the epidural I felt a lot during the birth because my doctor would shove her hands inside and stretch my vagina every time I pushed. I ended up having a 2nd degree vaginal tear but I couldn’t feel anything as she was stitching me up. 😊 Now, 12 hours later, my vagina still isn’t sore but my anus sure is after giving birth to all that poop. I apparently don’t have hemorrhoids though!

Anyway, That’s my induction story! Slightly less than 24 hours after arriving at the hospital, I was holding my baby. No pitocin needed either!

Extra info: I am a ftm, I started at 1cm and 0% effaced. I agreed to induce because my doctor had said she wouldn’t let me go past 41 weeks and Tuesday was the most convenient day for my husband to be there.