Well, I had quite prepared myself for an induction. My mother had, has had four kids, all of which were induced. My sister, first one had to be induced. So I sort of felt it ran a bit in the family, so I was all expecting I had another five weeks to go. Three weeks till forty and two weeks till induction. So I really thought I would have a late baby. And I think I just thought that you, you know - I hadn't really, although I'd thought I'd be late and would have to be induced, I hadn't thought of the impact on that. It wasn't till I was told I was being induced next Thursday that I sat down and they went through all the problems that can have, and the stages you go through, and what have you. Some do it very quickly, some take for ever -
Presumably when they're inducing early like that it's different to when they're inducing for overdueness, because the chances are that you're pretty much ready to go.
I had - the, the way they did it was exactly the same. The only difference was that normally they put in the pessaries the night before. But mine didn't start until eight in the morning, so they didn't want to risk it happening at, at night, so I sort of went down with the shift change in midwives. So I'm sure it was all partly to do with that as well. They want you to try and have a midwife for as long as possible, and you know, I went down at eight o'clock and we started, and nothing happened, apart from I threw my guts up and spent the whole morning on the loo. But no movement at all.
That was as a result of the induction drugs?
Yeah, drugs. So I had a terrible reaction to them, and I literally, there was nothing left inside. I was either, had thrown it up or you know, been on the loo the whole time. So, and I was having sort of semi contractions, but my cervix hadn't opened at all. And so they tried breaking my waters, which was excruciating, when there was no, you know, nothing there to really - they put in a great big needle [a plastic hook, called an 'amnihook'] and there was nothing there to open, to let the, you know, the needle couldn't get in. And it was excruciating, and so they put me up on a drip to try and - which was the sort of next stage. I wish I could remember all the drugs, but I can't.
Syntocinon [oxytocin]?
Yeah, that's right. Syntocin drip, and, but also put the epidural in at the same time, so that they could start to try breaking my waters quite early. And then once the epidural had gone in, it was quite a pleasurable afternoon. We, things were moving; the baby was being monitored. It had a, when there was room to get it in, it had a clamp on its head, to check it was all all right.
And, and things started moving really quite well. She went off to have tea, and, you know, said, "I don't think it's going to happen in my shift. You know, we'll have to get the next midwife in and introduce you to her", and what have you, and then I suddenly said to my husband, "Something's happening." And it had, it was about eight centimetres, my cervix, when she'd gone off, and then suddenly it all happened and twenty minutes later she popped out. |
