Hi Tanya

Best of luck for your induction. Here's some fresh recent experience of an amazing vaginal birth experience, particularly in terms of recovery. (I checked out of hospital yesterday.)

I had my son Theo James on Tuesday morning (15th May), after an eight hour labour, following 24 hours spurious labour and would definitely advise waiting until you are in the situation -- labouring, contracting etc -- to make a decision about a C-Section.

Give the induction a chance to work and make your choices as you go. Tell your birthing partners to give you total encouragement and positive feedback. I found my birthing partners (sister and hubby) and the midwife's encouragement, they said the same thing over and over, you can do it, you're doing so well etc, very important coping mechanism in terms of getting through everything. I had an unexpected 'active birth', to the point of doing lunges and pelvic thrusts etc. all through labour, to bring the baby down and open my cervix, which worked amazingly well. I'm sure it cut hours off the labour. (I'll be writing a birth story soon and posting it), but basically I managed to have a vaginal birth, gas only, small tear, something I had an open mind about, but had not in my wildest dreams expected to be able to cope with. I really thought I'd be screaming for pethadine and an epidural.

Hang in there, and best of luck for everything. The human body is absolutely amazing and surprising too! After having severe pre-eclampsia with my first child, (high forceps delivery, basically every intervention in the book besides a c/s) I can definitely vouch for giving a vaginal birth a real solid go at the very least. Like other people have posted, if there is a cord prolapse, your medical team will respond pretty damn fast to the situation.

Thinking positive is so very crucial, believing in yourself, your endurance and strength, and the fact that your body is made to do this, can help you get through. Try and put the fears aside, it's not helpful thinking 'what if this goes wrong.' What if it all goes right? Which is more likely to happen! There are many unknowns, but there are lots of different ways of coping with them, choices etc. You can do it, you really can!!

Thinking of you,

Mel