What if's

AACaHa13

Okay so I am coming up on 39 weeks. I have all of these ?'s in my mind whether baby will come on his own and I guess I need some advice to help clear my head! I have GD and baby is just fine in size, everything looks good and will not need to have NST's or BPP's until I am past due. My question is, the further I go, the more "at risk" my baby is. OB and I have made the decision that it is probably wise not to go past 41 weeks with GD. I am scared that being a FTM, I will need to be induced I know I am jumping ahead and could possibly be worrying for no reason if baby were to come on his own by then. Anyone with a similar experience? What are the medical ways of induction that made you feel "safe" or your experience with it? I just want to try to prepare mentally if I need to. Thanks!!

mysticl

My advice is research the various forms of induction and the various drugs used on your own. The hospital I gave birth at uses 2 drugs to induce labor.  They start with one and then add the other if needed.  They made the first drug sound like a very mild, safe way to induce labor.  Turns out it has some fairly significant risks associate with it yet none of the 3 people who gave me information on the drug bothered to mention those risks.  If I had known I probably would have made a different decision.  Such as demanding they order a different drug.  

barista411

Like PP said do your research on induction to see what your options are. I would also encourage you to do lots of walking, bouncing on a birth ball, and doing everything you can to get things going naturally. I was able to have my cervix stretched and membranes swept at my 39 week apt and DD was born a couple days later. So it wasn't fast but I think it worked well and was minimally invasive.

nodito

I was induced with DD at 40w 2d because of concerns with his heart rate.  By far, the scariest part of the experience was when the nurse came in every so often to up the dosage and I just knew that by doing so my contractions were about to get worse.  I always thought about induction as a one-time event, like, they hook you up or inject you or something and suddenly you're induced.  I wasn't prepared.  I think it would have been helpful to have read about what exactly induction entails so I wouldn't have gotten so freaked out whenever they added more pit to my IV.

Yogakitten

PP gave great advice. I'd also ask your doctor to walk you through the induction step by step once you've had a chance to read up on things yourself. That way you can ask him/her better questions about the protocol suggested vs other options.