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I reluctantly went to hospital to be induced on Sunday 30/7 at 41 weeks. They fitted me a pessary that morning at 11am and we waited nervously for 24 hours to see if anything worked. Monitoring showed mild tightening but no sign of baby coming any time soon - a prostin gel was fitted in the morning on Monday 31/7.
By the evening I was experiencing mild contractions and was checked and still a centimetre or so under where I needed to be to have my waters broken on the delivery suite. I had another half dose of the gel put in and by 11pm having slept an hour thanks to some paracetamol and codeine was having regular, increasingly strong, contractions.
When timing these I was having them for 40-50 seconds every 2-5 minutes within the hour. At 2.30am I called Josh, who shot back to the hospital. By 3 or 4am (time is a blur in Labour, truly!) I was moved wards to a quieter space at 4cm dilated, and took up the offer of pethidine which numbed the pain between, but not the actual contractions for me. I was sick and given gas and air which was wonderful. I was then walked to delivery where they found I was 6cm - I asked for an epidural but no sooner had they gone to consult the anaesthetist I was feeling the strongest urge of my life to push hard. It was the most primal urge I’ve ever felt and I trusted my body but was huffing so much gas and air the midwife removed it on judgement to bring me round to empower me to push as baby had gone from 6cm to crowning within what felt like a few minutes! Before I knew it I was breathing through, pushing, really vocalising and our amazing son was here at 6.28am on 1st August.