My first birth was better than I could have expected, after some initial nervousness I took a hypnobirthing course and religiously listened to my affirmations and relaxation tracks. I believe this all helped me to have the quick, relatively painless birth I was lucky enough to experience.
Nearly two years later and with my second pregnancy, suspected growth restriction was picked up at 34 weeks and quickly the talk turned to inductions at 37 weeks. This was definitely not part of my plan and between consultant appointments I would convince myself that it would all be OK, and then feel that disappointment every time they still advised induction.
By 36 weeks her growth had dropped to the 5th centile and after much consideration and monitoring we agreed to be booked in for induction at 37+3 weeks (we had agreed to decline induction if her growth stayed on the 10th centile but felt it was right to take the advice when this dropped further).
On induction day (which was also my husband’s birthday!) we dropped my little girl at nursery and went into the hospital at 10am and straight to a delivery room as I was considered a high risk induction so they wanted to monitor me from the start. I was nervous before we got to the hospital but knew I would be able to relax more once we were there and it had begun. I took lots of home comforts, snacks, pillows, Ipad to watch our current Netflix series and my aromatherapy diffuser to try and make it as relaxed as possible.
My midwife examined me and to my surprise I was already 2cm dilated so she was able to break my waters; after this it was a slow few hours as the monitor wasn’t picking up any contractions but I could feel something and so could the midwife. I used a flannel to sniff with lavender and clary sage essential oils on it to encourage contractions and had my hypno tracks on in the background. I had a lovely midwife who was keen not to put me on the drip if possible, so we waited 4 hours after which I was 4cm dilated.
I used my hypnobirthing breathing from the first contractions and alternated between sitting on the birth ball/standing/lying on my side on the bed. After the examination at 4cm I stood up and moved about which ramped up my surges and at last the midwife could also see them through the monitor, which also showed us that baby was coping fine with the surges.
I noticed that I was starting to get a bit more ‘wriggly’ during my contractions and struggling to focus on my breathing which was all encouraging as I could feel myself moving through transition. Just as I was thinking it was all getting a bit intense I came off the monitors thinking I wanted to to go to the toilet, by this point I was quite vocal and the pressure was building, I had an uncontrollable urge to push and soon realised baby was arriving when the midwife whipped out apron and gloves and towels in the bathroom.
A few minutes of pushing later my baby girl arrived swiftly and I was the most shocked when she handed me a baby whilst I was still on the loo! She was small at 5lb 10oz but perfectly formed and healthy, delivered 7 hours after my waters were broken.
Overall I had a great experience, I was able to use my hypnobirthing techniques which all contributed towards a smooth birth very similar to my first spontaneous labour.
I definitely went through a turmoil of emotions in the weeks leading up to my induction, but the best thing I did was to stay open minded and accept that Induction may need to be a part of my plan, rather than something negative to be avoided at all costs. I did my research, talked to different health professionals and actively sought out positive induction stories which all helped to get me into the right frame of mind and in the end, couldn’t have asked for a better birth experience.