Can I please hear your induction stories and anything you recommend?

[JellyBelly50]

Being induced in 6 days. Would like to hear your labour stories. Would also like to hear any regrets you had or things you recommend during the process (understand my experience will be different as everyone has different labours) but just curious x

I've had 2 inductions both very positive. I know that I may be in the minority. Both my baby's were very poorly after birth with infections and I'm so glad I never refused the inductions.

1st 42 weeks had my waters broken and hormone drip had him in under 4 hours.
2nd 36+6 waters went at home but no contractions so hormone drip again had him in 1.5 hours. Both only gas and air and lovely births.

I am 38 weeks now with no.3.

Be prepared for the possibility of a lot of waiting around, hopefully it won't be the case for you, but I had the propess pessary put in on early hours of day 2, started contracting quite quickly, but became back to back contractions after 12 hours, so they took it out, I was 2cm dilated and was told I would need to wait for a bed on the labour ward to have my waters broken unless I progressed myself. Unfortunately my contractions stopped completely and I was then in a queue of women waiting to go to the labour ward. I ended up there on day six due to issues with her heart rate. They broke my waters, put me on the syntocin drip and she arrived five hours later.

If you are there for more than a day or two have stuff to hand to distract you, take some of your favourite snacks, and nap as much as you can. Hope all goes well.

I’ve been induced 5 times. Each time only needed waters breaking, nothing else. Labours no worse than the two natural ones I’ve had. Also - be prepared that they can still be quick actually. One of mine was 18 minutes from breaking waters to baby, another (longest) was 5 hours. This can really shock some Mums.

Similar to the PP, I had assumed that things would progress quickly after being induced but they didn't. I also had the pessary and then labour stopped and started for a while. I also waited in a queue for a while before being taken to the labour ward where they then broke my waters and put me on a drip. There was no one available to give me an epidural until it was too late but I did have gas and air. Unfortunately though it ended up with a forceps delivery because it had gone on so long that I was exhausted and the baby was showing signs of distress.
So similar to the PP, my tip would be to have things to distract you, I had a music playlist on my phone which helped to distract me as well as pass the time. I would also nap when you can!

I was induced with DD2 last year. I went in on a Monday and had her on the Thursday morning. It felt like absolutely forever at the time. I was on the final stage they could try and they decided to take me to try break my waters properly (they'd tried a few times but my cervix was not having it) but thankfully they went on their own just before they tried. Looking back on it, as much as it was a super long and stressful time, it was something to remember though. I'd heard before that labour after induction is more painful, and they were not wrong. So if you're happy to, take any pain relief offered because I did and I definitely don't regret that . Good luck!!

My tip would be to ask for an epidural if you have to go on Oxytocin drip as you get out on it. I did this because of my friend's birthing horror story. It felt weird as I was having an epidural when I wasn't in any pain! But I'm glad I did. It also made it super easy when we then went for our c section (didn't progress very far with induction)

Sorry I meant "at the same time as you get put on it (ie the oxytocin)". Ie don't wait for the pain.