Started induction with the pessary on 22nd, put in at 3pm and sent home for 24h. No progress really expected by the doctors, and none achieved really. Examination next day showed cervix too far back to sweep and closed, trace showed DS was happy in there, and regular-ish contractions. Left for a 24h rest, but as now 42w I wasn't allowed home.
No sleep due to crying babies, and next morning was put on a trace. Trace showed I was having mild contractions, but less than night before. Then I decided to change position (sat up), which brought on some contractions but also a big drop in DS's heart rate. It would have been a bit of an emergency situation, but no one noticed at the time, and it was only seen on review of the trace a few minutes later - at which point DS has obviously recovered well. However, given the drop they decided to accelerate the induction and send me over to labour ward to get things moving asap.
Doc examined me and found I was 1-2cm, and cervix really far back. However she did a sweep and sent me off to walk around for a couple of hours to see if things progressed. I had quite a lot of bloody show, but no change on re-examination so she broke my waters. I was put on a trace and left for a while, and at some point it was decided to start the drip. I managed a couple of hours of the drip easily; contractions were very evident and quite painful, but TENS and walking around was sufficient. Then she turned up the drip by one more notch (about the 5th or so increase) and suddenly I was in agony every contraction. At this point I was about half way through the 'lets see what happens' stage, with 2h till and exam, and 8 hours till anything 'useful' was expected. So I tried GA which didn't help, and logically looked at the time remaining + current pain and decided I was going to end up with an epidural and it might as well be sooner rather than later!
Epidural was good, worked well, and didn't take away nearly as much feeling as I'd feared. I could still easily tell when I was having a contraction, but wasn't in pain from it. However, 25m after getting it in his heart rate dropped and Drs came rushing. Drip stopped, rest given, drip started, epidural topped up - and same again. 6cm at this point.
Consultant was phoned for advice and she decided best to get him out now. It wasn't an emergency, but it was very likely he'd keep having these episodes over the next 4cm + pushing, and so we'd end up with a CS anyway.
CS straight forward, DS born at 3:30am. He was given to Dr to check over and DH stayed with him, then had skin to skin while I was stitched up. I was given him in bed with me when taken out of theatre, and we managed to breastfeed in recovery room.
As he was a Christmas baby we also got given a present from the hospital, and the chance to be in the papers if he was the first born (he wasn't, someone beat me to it at about 1am).