Another positive induction story, 9 pounder

BeckyTheEngineer · January 2012

My due date had come and gone, and I had been having a few medical concerns. My doctor and I agreed that the best thing to do would be have the baby, so we scheduled an induction for 5 days after my due date. I arrived at the hospital at 6am, and was having regular contractions 4 minutes apart. This had been going on for weeks, and was not at all painful. I was 3 cm dilated.

At 7:30 the nurse started pitocin, and my contractions gradually became more painful. She came back every half hour to up the dose. At 9:00, the doctor came back and broke my water. A half hour later I asked for an epidural, and the anaesthesiologist came an hour later, at 10:30. The epidural eventually kicked in, and I felt pretty good, and I by 11:00 I was at 5cm.

The contractions became more painful by noon, and by 1:00 I was asking the nurse if it was possible to increase the dose of the epidural. She checked me, and I was 10 cm dilated. I was shocked that it happened so fast, but I was definately feeling more and more pressure. I felt ready to push, so the nurse had me try "as practice." After about 1 second of that she was telling me to stop, the baby was right there.

That day the morning doctor was scheduled to leave at noon, and the nurse said that they called the next doctor AT HOME and that he was on his way. I briefly panicked, knowing there was no way that I was waiting for him. Luckily, the morning OB hadn't left yet. She came in, and I pushed through 2 contractions. The doctor delivered the baby's head, and then wiggled the rest of her out incredibly slowly, one little body part at a time, as I kept pushing and watched her wrestle the baby out. Somehow, this method managed to mean that I didn't tear at all. She was born at 1:11pm.

My little girl weighed in at 9lbs 3oz, 21 inches long. The ultrasound that I had two weeks prior indicated a 6lbs 15oz baby. I still can't believe how fast everything happened, and feel so lucky that I now have two little girls. This labor was so much different than my first (no induction, 20 hours of labor, almost 3 hours of pushing, tons of tearing) that I feel even more fortunate to have had such a different experience this time.