Good question - I am in the same boat re: wanting to avoid induction again. Actually I am kind of jealous that your first two inductions sounded so easy compared to mine! I had a very long agonising labour since the contractions peaked early due to the pictocin and since my bub was not moving it just meant I had to put up with serious pain for a lot longer than I would have had I not been induced. While I had wanted to have a drug free birth using relaxation and hypnobirthing techniwues to handle the pain, I could not cope any longer after about 10 hrs of serious contractions no more than 3 minutes apart from the beginning (since the pictocin was introduced). At that point I was told that I had to have an epidural (my cervix was swelling due to the seriously bad contractions which was conteracting any dilation that was happening) as they had the pictocin at the highest dose, bub's heart rate was very slow and I wa not getting any further than 4cm dilated. If I refused the epidural, I was told I would need to have a ceasar under general anesthetic at that point as the epidural was the only chance left of me having the baby vaginally, the idea being it would relax everything a bit more and let the pictocin do it's job.

In my case induction was not able to be avoided as my waters had broken 2 days earlier and I was already 10 days over. The longest that it is deemed safe to have waters broken is two days, and most obs won't let you go more than 10 days late as the risks increase dramatically after this point. Speaking to an ob friend (in my mothers group) the other day she said that 10 days is picked because after that there are more still births and also it is unlikely that you will go into labour on your own after 10 days past your due date.

In the lead up to my due date (from about 38w)I had tried all the natural induction methods I could think of - two EPO capsules orally a day, plus... ewww - inserting them at night (hey I was desperate to have a natural birth), walking an hour a day, accupunture, raspberry leaf tea, sniffing/burning clary sage oil, sex... anything I knew of that was deemed safe (not the caster oil as I read it is quite dangerous). My waters broke on their own, but labour didn't start. When I was admitted for my induction I asked that only the minimal induction was done, so they gave me the lowest dose but increased it every hour as nothing was happening other than the painful contractions. Austin was born after a 14 hour labour, with the cord around his neck twice, which had to be cut while he was still inside me and he wouldn't breathe until rescusitated. He was still quite blue the next day and had to stay in the humidicrib to keep his oxygen levels up for two days before i could even take him out for a breastfeed. There went my ideas of lifting him to my chest at birth and letting him feed straight away, and it also meant I found it harder to bond and had a terrible time with my milk flooding in as he was ravenous by the time I was eventually allowed to feed (despite having been drip fed for the two days) and I was engorged very badly by the time I left the hospital (glad I asked to stay the extra day as I would have had the problems on my own at home if I hadn't stayed longer).

I am not trying to scare anyone, just want to make it clear why I don't want to be induced again, and why a simple "no" to the ob doesn't always work - if I wan't induced, I probably would not have a healthy little boy now. At least the ob tried everything she could to follow my wishes but after so long doing it my way and baby in danger, we had to try soemthing else.

So what I want to know is, what can I do this time around to make sure it's different? How can I make sure things progress once labour starts? I don't care if it's another long labour as long as it's not an induced labour - I think I could probably handle natural contractions a bit better than that!