Monday, March 31st
2008 March 21 by Tracy
If I don’t go into labor before March 31st then I am going in at 8 PM to get some medicine to bring his head down farther. Then Tuesday, April 1st my doctor will come and break my water and start the induction. So in 11 more days we will get to meet Josiah. I am so excited.
Ok, I gotta know–what is the medicine that will bring his head down farther?
Thanks,
Kathy
womantowomancbe.wordpress.com
I don’t know what the medicine is but I think its something that goes on the cervix. Not sure though.
Oh, okay. As a childbirth instructor, I’m always on the look-out to improve my knowledge.
It sounds like a cervical ripening agent–maybe Prepidil or Cervidil (one is a gel applied to your cervix, the other is a tampon-like preparation which has a string so it can be removed if it has negative side effects like uterine hyperstimulation); or possibly the ulcer drug Cytotec (generic name misoprostol, sometimes nicknamed “miso”–I’ve written about this on my blog, if you want some links).
If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t let them break my water–the contractions are usually stronger and more difficult to deal with; babies tend to have more fetal distress without that water cushion between them and the contractions; and if the induction doesn’t work, you have to have a C-section, whereas if you keep your amniotic sac intact, you can wait and try again later. A friend of mine just had an elective induction a couple of days ago and ended with a C-section due to fetal distress; they broke her water very early in the induction as well.
Before I’d allow an induction on myself, I’d want to know what my Bishop’s score is, which is an indication of how likely an induction is to work. You can google it to see how they figure the score, but it takes into account things like how far you’re already dilated and effaced, how many kids you’ve already had, etc. If I were a poor candidate for an induction, but for some reason the baby needed to be born, I think I might even choose a C-section rather than face the increased likelihood that I’d go through all that labor and then end up with a C-section at the end anyway.
Kathy
womantowomancbe.wordpress.com
I am not too worried about having to have a c-section. This is my 5th child and 3 out of the 4 so far I have had my water broke early on in the induction and never had a problem. My labors from start of induction to birth is 2 1/2 hours long. Now for painful I don’t know about that because my oldest was the most painful and her water didn’t break until the first push and I had some narcotics with her but the others I had no medication at all not even a epidural and they seemed better and able to cope with the contractions when the water was broken early.