Experiences of second births after a difficult induction and forceps delivery

[Sameoldtiredmum]

Hi everyone,

hope you can help me or give me some advice, my daughter who’s 2 now when I was pregnant with her I was induced (horrific experience) hormone drip. Laboured for 23 hours and pushing for nearly 4 hours to end up cut from front to back and a forceps delivery. I’m currently pregnant with baby no 2. I don’t want an induction, has anyone had a successful second baby after a failed/long induction.

Your first birth is what happened to me!

my second; I was induced again but, it was the most amazing birth. Much quicker, I had an internal tear, stitches but I honestly didn’t feel a thing after!
I was so worried as the pain from the episiotomy still gives me shivers.
I pushed for 8 minutes.

@Sameoldtiredmum
My first birth was induced and awful. I've never been in pain like it. I was 14 days late so I agreed to an induction without really understanding the risks; I was definitely not sufficiently supported to make an informed choice. Induced on the Wednesday morning and my baby (now 19!) wasn't born until the Friday morning. Failed forceps attempts, ventouse, episiotomy, significant tearing.
When my second baby went overdue I knew I would refuse to be induced; luckily I wasn't pressured this time around as he was only 10 days late.
Still not the nicest of experiences as I was left with a student midwife who decided to artificially break my waters which caused a bit of emergency and my son (now 16) has some hearing loss as a result. However, a far less painful labour, and also considerably shorter.
10 years later (at 39) I had another baby. She was a planned homebirth with an Independent Midwife with no cascade of intervention issues, and her birth was honestly one of the best days of my life.

My second was great. Waters broke. No pain for hours. Got pain for about three hours and boom, he was out. Was a brilliant birth. Good luck. My first was like yours.

you have my sympathy, I also went through this. It’s hard to forget. I can’t help with the second birth advice as the minute they wanted to induce for second baby (induced for first too) I requested a c section which was smooth and very healing. The one thing I would say is second time round you are much more likely to be able to advocate for yourself and know your limits.

My first labour was a speedy induction yet I was told repeatedly it would take days, I knew they were busy and didn’t want to be the woman that made a huge fuss. Turns out that was to my detriment. There is no reason why things have to go the same way second time round, just be strong in asking for help etc, keep the control. Best of luck xx

I was induced both for dc1 and dc2. Dc1’s labour was so awful I waited seven years before ttc again.

Second labour was so different - the induction was planned and I was dreading it and I thought to myself, I simply cannot go into this again feeling anxious.

So I did hypnobirthing. Purists may say you can’t do it when you’re being induced but I did! I decided I’d spend the first part of my induction shopping (hospital happy to let me go out as long as I didn’t go miles) so dh and I went to the nearby House of Fraser for a mooch! Then I sent dh home, watched a funny movie on my phone. As the contractions started to build I switched to listening to rainforest soundtracks with birdsong and I meditated and did my visualisations and breathing exercises. I had two paracetamol at midnight as midwife offered and I had a bit of pain. The midwife said I was doing fine and didn’t check me. She came by at 1am and had a chat and she still didn’t check me. Then at about 2am I walked round to the midwife station and asked if she could check me as I felt like I had progressed and she said no, I wouldn’t be talking and walking like that if things were progressing so I should walk around some more then go and rest. I went back to my bed and called dh and told him to come in. He arrived at 2.45am by which time I was struggling - I told him to go and get the midwife urgently. He came back and said she had told him she was busy (ffs!) and she’d pop by in a bit.

I remember saying to him, “go back and drag her here RIGHT NOW.”

Midwife arrived a bit grumpily and checked me over and say “oh my you are 10cm dilated, that’s a surprise. We need to get you to a labour room!” And they trundled me down at high speed on a trolley and I gave birth not long after, just with some gas and air.

It was really such a good birth. I remember thinking that absolutely everyone should do hypnobirthing as the midwife said it was rare to get to fully dilated with so little fuss.

I had a difficult induction with first baby - resulting in episiotomy and forceps. Second baby was an amazing hypnobirthing home water birth. It is possible! (I was sceptical about hypnobirthing and only did the course because I won it as a raffle prize at a baby show. But it was amazing, made so much difference.)

1st birth was similar to yours. Induced, long, forceps. 12 days overdue
2nd was only in hospital for 40 mins before she popped out. 3 puffs of gas and air and we had a baby. So so different to number 1. 10 days overdue.
3rd was brutal and barbaric but absolutely necessary to save his life. 13 days overdue.

I had the same experience with my first baby also. Horrific, long, forced, forceps, etc. Whe I got pregnant with my second 18 months after, I asked for a debrief and met with a senior midwife to unpack and understand the rationale and unpick some of the mayhem and mystery of the chaos and trauma. I had felt a lot of anger with a lot of unanswered questions and it was really helpful to understand what had happened and why. My second birth was, I think partly as a result of the above, calm, quicker and almost a pleasant experience. I hope second time is for you too. You got this!

1st induction, horrific, long. Forceps and stitches, antibiotics and a week in hospital.

2nd a dream. Un-medicated home birth, so calm and only had one examination just before I started pushing.

First was 14 hours and eventually delivered by forceps…. Second was 2 hours start to finish, no pain relief and 2 pushes 🤣

@PawMaw You first and second sound very similar indeed to my first and third.
What do you think, personally speaking, made them such very different experiences?