Hellobee Boards

@periwinklebee: So excited that you’re so close! I hope LO decides to make a grand appearance this weekend and you can avoid induction altogether. I really don’t have advice or tips, just my own experience. I was 41+5 when DS arrived and about a half-cm dilated going into it. I was/am AMA too and doing tons of NSTs and checks and sweeps and acupuncture and walking for miles and DS still did not want to come.

Then at 41+3, I packed my bag and went in. They did cytotec, then a Foley tube, then pitocin. 30 hours later I stalled at 7cm. Manually broke water. Still didn’t progress but contractions got real. I got an epi but it didn’t help (I have mild scoliosis and it just didn’t numb me fully). Failed induction and I had a cs. He was sunny-side up and not coming out of these little hips!

So it’s really hard to predict! Even an induction with all of the medical stuff going on! You’d think it would just happen the same for every woman, but you just never know.

I got to 5 cm using a Foley without pitocin and I think that was a good way of trying to get my body moving. I’m glad I tried! And I wasn’t hooked up to the IV with that so I could move around a lot. Looking back, it took me about 25 hours to get there so I should have known there was something up. When I was finally on pitocin, I tried (and my doula, too) to not let the nurse’s pitocin schedule get too far ahead of me. They turn up the dial every 30 mins or so whether you’re progressing or not. In the end, they had it all the way jacked up and I was still stuck at 7 cm... so our trying to hold them off from ramping up the pitocin only worked for so long and only did so much good.

Oh, and I did the hypnobirthding CDs for a lot of the time. I spent a lot of time on the yoga ball with my doula pushing on my back. Even if it’s induction, there’s a lot of work to do so bring all of your bag of tricks..and a doula. Hey, maybe that’s my tip: have a doula even for an induction!