Experiences with hormone drip following pessary

[MummaDaisy]

Hi all,

im currently in hospital writing this after 51 hours of pretty much waiting around. I have had a difficult pregnancy mentally following 3 miscarriages prior and have been anxious the whole time. Only to find out at 20 weeks this baby has a heart defect known as a right aortic arch. Since then I’ve been told there’s a chance my baby will have chromosomal abnormalities.

since then, things had gone smoothly until Thursday when I came in for reduced movements and they found that baby’s umbilical artery PI is >95th centile and has dropped from 50th to 11th centile on growth scans. They were not happy with this and decided to induce me Friday morning.

I was already 1cm dilated prior to the propess pessary and after 24 hours not much had changed. After 1 lot of the prostin gel my cervix had dilated to 2cm and they think they can just about break my waters which they agreed to do after examining me at 9pm yesterday. After 2 further examinations at 2am last night they agreed they will call the delivery unit to break my waters but I am still waiting for my bed.

I am now sat here in anticipation sick with worry and absoloutely exhausted from 2 nights no sleep. I requested to go home during propess but they refused due to risk factors but have not been monitoring me as though I am high risk.

I am just sick with worry and to be honest I am exhausted. I am not sure how much longer I will be kept waiting and then I’ve heard horror stories about the drip. I would like to hear everyone’s experiences as a FTM on the drip. In terms of pain/length of time and wether it was even successful.

my fear is that because it took 30 hours of prostaglandin to dilate me 1cm I just have zero hope this will work and fear it’ll end up with a c section anyway and then I will be too exhausted to look after a baby. I just wish I could have one now.

im just terrified and feel so unsupported. Nobody has come to reassure me or to check on me and I feel so overwhelmed.

I felt like that too, and was completely and utterly fed up.

The propess didn't work for me, then i had my waters broken and the drip started.

I eventually had a c section anyway and wish we had gone straight to that.

Hope you are doing ok x

I had the drip when I was pregnant with my 3rd ( was being induced due to IUGR, he was on the 6th percentile )

They offered me an epidural beforehand as they said it was going to be more painful than a natural labour....... I declined it because I had no idea how painful it was actually going to be 🤦‍♀️

It was like going from 0 to 100. It was horrific. I was projectile vomiting it was so bad. I ended up demanding they take the drip out and asked for the epidural, they gave it me and it very rapidly turned into the best,easiest labour I've ever had..... so if they offer you an epidural my advice would be to accept

--- it sounds like my experience, they kept me in hospital for 2 days waiting for a spare bed to pop my waters, I wanted to go home to wait, they said I couldnt unless I wanted to lose my place in the queue. Woke me up at 1:30am in the morning to pop my waters/give me the drip and I had my son by 12:13pm the next day.

So sorry this is such a stressful time for you, do you have support around you? I'd try and get some sleep while you can too

This sounds awful. Is your partner with you? I’d ask to speak to the Charge Nurse and request a caesarean, if fobbed off stick to your guns and ask to speak to an obstetrician. Your part needs to help with this. Say you are requesting because if the risk to your health and the health of your baby.
If they are still not helpful request to be given the contact for PALS at the hospital.

I wish you luck.

Our twins I was told to go in at 7pm on a Tuesday. Drip was booked for 8:30pm but an emergency came in and they didn't give me the drip till just after midnight and the girls were born an hour and 25 mins later. But all my other births were natural home ones and quick aswell. It's the tiredness hopefully you will get seen soon

For me it out me 0-100 quite quickly, I’d already told them I wanted the epidural if I had to have the drip. Once the epidural went in I could still feel the contractions and needed gas and air but it was manageable, I could still move my legs which I quite liked tbh. I needed an episiotomy and ventouse to get baby out but honestly, it was fine. A means to an end in my eyes.
Wishing you lots of luck, biggest bit of advice I had was don’t dwell on the Labour once babys here - just get through it and start the healing process.

I can offer some hope.

My first induction, I had 2 sets of gels that dilated me to a measly one centimetre. I was taken down that night regardless, as there were no labourers at all on delivery suite.

Anyway, after the ARM, I had the drip. I didn't start contractions straight away, but they began increasing in number, length and intensity as the drip was turned up every half hour. Found it manageable on gas+air for ~6 hours, but then needed stronger pain relief for which I chose diamorphine. 5 hours (and one hell of a high) later, I was fully dilated. Contractions stopped without the drip, and I had no urge to push, but despite that, after 20 minutes pushing, I had my beautiful DD. Total drip time was around 11.5 hours.

I hope you've gotten some sleep, and that you're not waiting much longer to go down to delivery suite. Though as others have said, you can refuse to continue the induction process at any point and ask for a C-section.

My advice would be ask for an epidural before going on the drip. Partly because it's so painful and partly because if labour doesn't progress it is much easier to then just top it up to prep you for a c section
I only dilated 1cm after 8 hours on the drip and elected for a section at this point as baby was showing signs of distress. It ended up being a lovely calm birth (I already had epidural in) and although tired was at least not in pain. Wishing you all the best for a safe delivery xx

Have an epidural!

I had a long labour with my first and had the drip. I didn't have an epidural. I was absolutely exhausted and pushing was therefore very difficult. In hindsight I think if I had had an epidural I would have managed to get some sleep and pushing would have then been easier.

If it helps, I didn't need a drip the second time round and I didn't find the contractions any kinder than when I had the drip.

Good luck!

I've had the drip 3 times. Always managed on gas and air. It's not the worst pain in the world I've found. It's just very intense and you don't really get a break after a whilst. Would do it again. Goood luck x

this was me last week, however we were on a time crunch due to my hind waters breaking.

gel didn’t work for me as my body was too stressed. For me my worries we’re not being mobile to manage the pain as being in drip meant I was pretty much bed bound and if I took the epidural how it would work.

I opted for an epidural before the drip started as I was scared it would get bad and I would be in a traumatic position asking for it later on if the contractions got bad. It depends how it works in your hospital but in mine I was able to self administor to manage the pain and found I used it minimally in the later stages but knowing I had it meant I could relax as I had something if it got really bad, this meant my body relaxed and end up doing a lot of the work and I managed to deliver on all fours vaginally as I didn’t excessively use the hormone drip or epidural.

the hormone drip just meant I had more frequent contractions. For me opting for a selective CS didn’t feel right unless necessary for me and DS. However it worked out positively and I look back on it a positive way.

i read so many of these threads in a panic, but in truth go with your gut and it will be fine, and enjoy your newborn bubble when you DS arrives.

Update:

Hi all, thanks for all your responses!

Our baby girl arrived last night at 10.40pm at 39+1 weighing 6lbs 7oz.

luckily her heart condition so far seems to not be causing her any issues at all which is excellent and all we could ask for! Her obs are also amazing and she’s a very good girl.

I was very fed up at the time of writing this and 3 hours later, they finally brought me to the delivery unit and broke my waters. I ended up having her 7.5 hours later following starting the hormone drip.

it was very painful as expected and I begged for an epidural at 5cm after 6 hours of labour, but things progressed very quickly from there on out and I managed to be 10cm and push her out within the next hour and a half!

So In the end i managed with paracetamol and Gas and air, but I would certainly recommend an epidural if your pain threshold is low because boy do they whack up the drip and it is back to back contractions with no break.

just glad she’s here now, safe and healthy. Thanks everyone for your stories and advice x

Congratulations!! So glad she has arrived safely and you are both doing well xx

Congratulations!!! 💐💐💐

Congratulations! So glad everything went well, and you weren't kept waiting too long after your post. ❤

Congratulations! That’s brilliant news all round! 🥳