Induction SUCCESS STORIES please!!

[MrsRose2018]

Hi ladies,

You may have seen my previous posts, long story short waters broke at 25 weeks and I’m now nearly 29! Yay!

So after weeks of research and deliberation And following an app with my consultant I have been advised that a planned induction and “natural” vaginal birth is the best delivery option.

I’m happy with this in terms of my baby but I’m very very afraid at the prospect of having an instrumental delivery. Prior to my waters breaking my “birth plan” was, unless it was an absolute emergency I DID NOT want an instrumental delivery and may even have chosen an EMCS over it due to my fears of what it will do to my vagina in terms of 3/4th degree tear and damage to my pelvic floor!

Obviously my main priority is getting my Son out alive and as healthy as possible but when he’s out and growing up I need to not be i continent and have a decent sex life with my husband - these are my fears of what will happen if I have an induction/instrumental delivery and is due to real life cases of this happening to people I know. Not just my googling.

I would really appreciate if I could hear the SUCCESS stories of induction/instrumental delivery rather than what’s gone wrong. Also I don’t want to open up the ELCS vs vagina delivery debate. I’ve already had that!!

Just FYI I have to have the drip rather than the pessary/gel as they can’t put anything inside my vagina due to infection risk/no amnio.

Thanks so much xx

*incontinent

Also sorry induction would be at 37 weeks provided I don’t go into spontaneous labour and I’m also aware I may need forceps even if I’m not induced and things get going naturally but it’s much much more likely I’ll need an instrumental delivery if I am induced x

I had an induction and forceps delivery with my first. The recovery was harder than I expected but I'd imagine still easier than a c-section. I had an episiotomy for it to reduce risk of tearing and it was well repaired - no infection, pelvic floor needed some work but no more than I expected, and if anything sex was better afterwards! I've just had my second too and had him naturally with just a small tear so it had no impact on future deliveries.

I was induced with DS1 and 3 and DS1 was a ventouse delivery.

No issues post birth at all

@Navy123 may I ask what work your pelvic floor required? If that's too personal a question please don't feel you need to answer! Did you just do general exercises to tighten it back up? X

I have had 2 inductions the first because of my waters breaking at 37 weeks and 2nd was planned. For me it was pretty much straight forward, I had the pessary to start with then the drip and my labour was 7 hours, I had a bit of a bleed and needed an episiotomy in the end but healed perfectly well. I'm not incontinent and my sex life hasn't been affected. Theres really not much to say, it was a positive birth for me, though i didn't think I would be induced I still enjoyed the experience. The 2nd induction was perfectly straight forward, even more so than the first (I think because I was a bit more relaxed than the 1st time) was about 6.5 hours long and no tearing, just a graze. Hope your birth goes well

I had an induction at 37 weeks, only needed one pessary to bring on labour and no instruments were used in delivery. Two stitches for a small tear, no issues post-birth! Pelvic floor felt non-existent after, but that’s normal. Did the usual exercises and it soon came back! 😊

@MrsRose2018 just exercises - I only mentioned it because it's taken less time second time around to get back to normal, so I assume the delivery had more impact on it with my first. Get ahead of it now though and do them as often as you can before you deliver!

I was induced at 38 weeks. Tiny tear and was up and about about half an hour later. Recovery literally took the afternoon!

I had an induction at 40+12 days, one pessary to kickstart it, had my waters broken by a midwife the following day and DS arrived shortly afterwards with no further interventions. We were home within a few hours. 👍

Also, my autocorrect wants to turn pessary into peasant, which would be a very different birth experience, and I thought you should all know this

Induced at 39 exactly. Because of delays I gave birth on the Sunday after being given the first pessary on the Friday and the next two on the Saturday. Whole experience was good on the whole, I had my waters broken which shifted things (although I know you wont need that) and at one point I had too many contractions so almost had the drip to slow things down but they decided against it. Pushed for 2hours 15 minutes in the end, and baby was born absolutely fine. I did haemorrhage but I found out afterwards that was most likely due to the reason why I'd been induced in the first place. The key for me was staying calm and letting the midwives do everything they had to and just concentrate on getting through each contraction or push without thinking of the next one. I only got worked up twice, the first when I was having too many contractions and I wasn't allowed anything stronger than gas and air (turned out I could have had an epidural or pethidine, was denied them because the midwives thought I'd be giving birth really soon which I didn't, but I was glad I didn't have them in the end) and the second time I was exhausted from labouring for so long and pushing for so long that when the baby's head was out I begged for them to just pull the rest out.
I healed really well too, ended up staying in the hospital until the Tuesday just for help with breastfeeding, but when I was home as long as I was sat on the nursing pillow so there was no pressure on the stitches I was absolutely fine. I even ended up getting the baby registered on the Wednesday because I felt so good, and visited everyone at work, my family at their jobs, and did a little bit of shopping.
Remember your pelvic floor exercises otherwise you'll end up weeing yourself just turning over in bed (not speaking from experience here or anything) and don't push yourself to do anything too soon. I tried standing up the day I gave birth even though I didn't really want to and it set me back a little, I also tried going out most days but because I was still exhausted from labour and then the added exhaustion of a newborn it meant I was tiring myself out more than necessary and I then stayed in for a week or so just sleeping at every possible moment and felt much better.

Completely different situation to yours OP but I was really worried about induction.
I was induced at 41+5 - luckily they only needed to break my waters (was already 3cm dilated) and labour started about 30 mins later. I was only in labour for 5 hours - had gas and air and pethidine and no interventions

@Spudlet you should have left it as peasant

'I had an induction at 40+12 days, one peasant to kickstart it'

I had induction with my 2nd at 42 weeks. Took the pessary, having waters broken, and finally the drip to actually get things going (baby was definitely comfy in there!) - then it was all nice and quick (about 2 -3 hours if I recall). Biggest help was doing that puffing type breathing at the end so I didn't tear at all - which was really nice as I'd had quite a bad tear first time round (water birth, no instruments).

Thanks ladies this is all really encouraging and making me feel much much better!

I know tearing is just one of the joys of a vaginal delivery and im totally fine and accepting of that but my SIL needed to have what was essentially reconstructive surgery to correct her 4th degree instrumental tear and my mamma had to have a hysterectomy and lots of other stuff to correct the damage to her pelvic floor following forceps!

The consultant has put my mind to rest about the risks to baby from instrumental delivery but when you're told the best option to prevent serious injury is to literally slice your perineum it doesn't give you much comfort 😂

I've been doing my usual clenches and the "zip" technique - bum role clench first and then ziiiiiiiiiip up to your Vjayjay but if anyone has anything else I can to do "prep" please do share!

Are those aniball/pelvic floor trainer things any good?? x

Hole*

Induction at 42 weeks here. Pessary at 2pm and born at 3am because he got stuck and was distressed (big head). Had a forceps delivery in theatre, ready for a csection but they managed to get him out with the forceps, episiotomy and a tear - stitches - was up walking after absolutely fine, never hurt once, healed up without any problems whatsoever as good as new!

Induction at 37 weeks here. Had gel pessaries to try to start things off, but it wasn't until I had the drip that things got going. It's intense, but with pain killers I found it manageable. I kept needing the drip turned up as my contractions kept dying off when they turned it down a little to give me a break. They even died off when it came time to push! No interventions needed and just a small second degree tear to be stitched.

Good luck with it all!

I've had three successful inductions.

Baby 1 - pessary at 11am, waters broke at 5:30am. Epidural inserted then waters broken at 7am. Syntocinon started.

Baby born at 6pm. Ventouse delivery as my epidural was re-sited at 5pm and I couldn't feel anything and her heart rate was rising.

Baby 2 - epidural inserted at 9am, and Waters broken at 11am. Syntocinon started. Baby born naturally at 6pm.

Baby 3. Waters broke at 11pm on Friday. Pessary at 9am Saturday. Syntocinon at 6pm Saturday. Baby born at 3am sun day.

My advice. Get an epidural and a syntocinon drip. Fastest way to make induction work and without you bring in pain.

My pelvic floor and sex life is fine

Oh and baby 1 had a second degree tear.

Baby 2 I had grazes. This was horrible! Stung for days afterwards

Baby 3 - second degree tear - much better than the grazes! X

Awe thank you all so so much!! I really do feel much better!

It's hard isn't it, balancing what's best for your baby and what's best for your body!

I know our bodies are "designed to give birth" but when you introduce an induction there is nothing natural about the birth IMO! How can something be "natural" if by it's very nature it increases the need for an instrument delivery and makes labour longer and more painful?!

I'm not allowed any opiates (except maybe remifentayl.. I need to ask about that) because it causes breathing problems for the baby if miss-timed and it's not advised for premature deliveries so I'm pretty much gas and air or an epidural! I'm fine with having an epi, I'm not a hero and my pain tolerance is less then zero (why am I having a baby again?? 😂😂)

I've seen so so so many discussions and debates on MN in the last two weeks where women have shared their horror stories of inductions and vaginal births so argue that an ELCS is the better mode of delivery - honestly NOT trying to start a debate here - that I've just unnecessarily scared myself about it all!

It's my first baby and I'm quite an anxious person anyway so hearing your positive stories has helped me no end!

At the very least I'll get the designer vagina all women wast now a days eh?? 😂 x

I had oxytocin drip induction at 38 weeks due to waters leaking. Baby was born 4 hours after starting drip with no interventions and only a graze requiring 2 stitches. Couldn't of written it better! I had been having mild contractions on and off for a few days before not sure if that made any difference.

Induction at 41+2
Straight on to the drip as my waters had broke.
Other than not being able to have the water birth I'd planned everything was straight forward. I had no pain relief, I sat on the ball until I was examined at 7cm and laid on my side on the bed...there was a moment they thought they were going to have to take me to theatre because they were worried about the baby but I pushed him out...turns out he was bloody massive!! I had a tear but had a stitch and other than needing to download the Squeezy app nothing major!
All in all a good experience! xx

I had an induction at 39 weeks. Once the pessary was placed I went to into labour very quickly and gave birth within 3 hours. It was very quick and hurt but dd is 9 months now.

All 4 of mine were inductions.

#1 I was 41 weeks.

It took 3 pessaries, ARM and I pushed for an hour, epidural was partially effective so I think that actual helped because it hurt! I had a tiny nick that they didn't stitch. Took 30 hours from start to finish.

The next 3 were also induced, at varying gestational stages - quickest was 1 pessary and 10 hours, longest was another 3 pessaries and 32 hours with ARM.