Easy but surprise induction

I don't post a whole lot but I have loved reading birth stories so I thought I'd post mine.

This was my second baby. My first was born (DS) at 41 weeks. I had resigned myself to the fact that my second would likely be late as well just so I wouldn't be so frustrated when I saw my due date come and go. Well this little lady had different plans.

The morning I turned 38 weeks I realized that I hadn't felt her move in almost 24 hours. She was usually pretty active so this was strange. I called my dr and actually expected them to tell me to try some caffeine, she was getting cramped, etc. Instead, they told me to go to L&D for monitoring and to go right away. This made me a bit nervous but I tried to stay calm as I dropped my son off at my in-law's, called my DH, and went in. Once I arrived, they were thankfully able to find a heart rate right away, but it was much higher than they would like- I think it averaged in the mid to high 180's. I spent most of the day being monitored, getting fluids, getting an ultrasound. Still no movement. However, they could not find anything "wrong" with the baby and the heartbeat was slowly coming down to the 170's. I honestly thought they were going to send me home.

By 8PM the dr came and said even though the baby looks ok, something wasn't sitting right with him. Lack of movement and a high heartrate weren't good combos so he wanted to incude me right away. I was so excited but so nervous. And hungry since they hadn't let me eat all day! I was only 1cm and pretty tight but they started a pitocin and fluids bolus (sp?) pretty quickly. I didn't think about this until afterwards but they did have 2 nurses in my room at all times monitoring me, flipping me, giving me oxygen. They also highly encouraged me to get an epidural right away. This was WAY different from my first. I had labored a lot on my own and was told to just ask if and when I wanted an epidural. Even though this time I wasn't haven't problems laboring, I honestly think they were nervous about the baby and were afraid that an emergency C-section might be in my future if the heart rate went up again.

After I got my epidural about 2AM things seemed to move pretty quickly. I was fairly comfortable and after some oxygen and repositioning, the baby did pretty well. By 7AM I was 10cm. They made me stop pushing because she was coming so fast. By the time the dr got there, she was born just a few minutes later. At 7:29AM our beautiful little girl came into the world with her cord wrapped TIGHTLY around her neck 3 times. That explained all of her movement and heart issues. She was very gray but thankfully started screaming immediately and pinked up fairly quickly. We thank God she had no health issues whatsoever. Harper Rose was 7 lbs 7 ozs and 20.5" long.

Overall, I felt like my induction was not much worse than my natural labor I had with my son. And I am even happier we had such a good outcome with what could have been an even scarier situation!