Here is a brief version of Amy’s birth story. It didn’t turn out as planned and was not the best experience at the time.

I finished work at 38 weeks we began a week of doing things to induce her naturally. At exactly 39 weeks, my waters broke and I went to hospital a couple of hours after that. Contractions didn’t start for 1 ½ hours after my waters broke and when they did start, they didn’t hurt much. We had a birth plan that was given to the midwives when we arrived. The birth plan said that I didn’t want to be induced and didn’t want to be offered drugs and would use gas if absolutely needed. After about 12 hours of ‘fun’ labour the Ob came to see me. He had also read our birth plan and said I was about 1-2 cms only it was up to us if and when we wanted to start the syntocin (sp?) to move things along. He didn’t examine me because of the chance of infection. The drip was started and the ‘fun’ labour turned into ‘real’ labour and it hurt a lot. The drip was slowly being increased and after several hours of pain I asked for gas. This helped for a while and the contractions were coming hard and fast. After about 4 hours on the drip I could not cope with the pain anymore. My DH had already ordered an epidural which I was unaware of because I was in such a distressed state. I finally asked for an epidural so it didn’t take long because the anesthetist was already on his way. The pain soon stopped and it was great. I could feel a tightening and saw the contractions on the monitor.
Sometime during the night, Amy’s heartbeat started dropping to 80 with each contraction. We knew this was not good and could tell something was wrong reading the two midwives faces. They phoned my Ob and he asked that the trace was faxed to him. My Ob came straight away and an emergency caesarean had been organised. The cord was around her neck twice and this was the reason why she was in distress. I suppose this would be classed as a ‘failed’ induction but it just wasn’t to be. We have a perfectly healthy and happy toddler now and there were no complications from this experience.

I asked my new Ob why the last birth happened like it did. He wasn’t there but made the comment that ‘my body wasn’t ready’. No one really knows but there are lots of things that you can do to prepare your body for birth which may help. Also a planned induction may have a totally different outcome to my ‘unplanned’ one if that makes any sense.

It is great that you have been given the option for a natural birth. There are some really good induction stories and I wish you all the best August with your baby boy’s birth. You have a very positive attitude and I know you will get all the support you need from the lovely people on BB. Take care.