Rewind a little.... (part 1 - Can I avoid induction?)

So I know that I havent posted a birth story yet but it has taken me some time to get my head around it all. There were things that I found too upsetting to think about and I had to rationalise these in my head and look at the bigger picture. Now that that is all sorted and straightened out, I feel in a better position to get it all out of my head.

Here goes...

Trying to avoid an induction
I came to realise throughout this pregnancy that this little lady likes to keep us waiting and there is no hurrying her up to do things in the timeframe that you would like. To start with, it took 5 years for her to arrive, then when trying to get some 4D pictures, it took three visits to the ultrasound place to actually get one of her face as she was always hiding it. Then, she would keep us on our toes about whether she would turn from breech position or not and eventualy turned just after 37 weeks (and several inversion exercises - see pic) so cut it a bit fine, and caused me some level of anxiety about whether it would have to be a C section.

Then, the due date came and went and no sign of anything happening.  41 weeks came and went with no sign of anything happening. Each time I was checked by the midwife, my body had made no progress. I was booked in to start an induction at  41weeks and 5 days and desperately wanted to avoid this as I know my body doesnt react well when you force it to work when it is not ready. I had seen this already during the whole IVF process. So I felt I had to make sure I had done everything possible to encourage her to make her own way out. I had accupuncture on the friday (41w1d) and was given some accupressure points to keep working on over the weekend, which I did religiously every hour on the saturday until the points were so bruised they hurt too much.  The accupuncturist even left these little plasters on the points which had tiny little needles on that I was supposed to massage.

 We ate spicy food, I ate dates, basil, oregano, and we (somehow) had sex too!


I started getting quite down by the monday (41w4d) that I was a failure, I couldnt even go into labour myself, that this was all some big illusion or something and just another thing that we were doing to try and have a baby but that it would all end in a big fat nothing like all the other things we had tried over the years. I cried for the whole morning as I came to terms with the fact that I would have to go into hospital the next day to be induced; I wouldnt get to labour at home or use the birth pool we had had blown up and ready for the past 5 weeks; Id have to manage in hospital with the pelvic dysfunction that I had been troubled by all pregnancy; and finally that I would be spending my birthday in hospital, wednesday, probably not in labour as my body wouldnt respond to the induction drugs and it would be a horrible, long and drawn out process. To top it off, I was being inundated with texts, emails and calls about whether I had had the baby yet, or was there any news, or jokingly saying I should get a move on. Im afraid I started ignoring them, even though many were well meaning, since I cried even more with each one I received.

So to try and keep positive we went out for an early birthday dinner that evening seeing as we would be stuck in hospital from the next day onwards. I psyched myself up to deflate the birthing pool the next day and pack my bag for the hospital. We had a nice meal and went to bed knowing that at least in the next few days we would have a little baby, however she came.

I then woke up at 2am and had some cramps, I went to the toilet, got back in bed, and then had my first contraction!! I thought, hmm, I know this can take a while...ill just try to sleep a bit more....but that never happened...