D-day is re-scheduled

We went into hospital again this morning. It was quite a stressful visit.

Firstly everything was running late so we went for the ultrasound scan first. This was fine and although it showed reduced amniotic fluid it was no worse than you would expect for this point in the pregnancy.

The baby's heart and movement was then monitored. (S)he seemed to be sleeping for most of the trace. Then (s)he woke up and showed fluctuating heart-rate with movement (which is good), but unlike last time there were some marked dips in the trace. One of them was as low as 90 bpm, compared to the usual rate of around 140bpm which rises to around 160bpm with movement. They were only short dips but enough to cause the midwife to call in a doctor. He looked at the trace and said that because the dips were short they were nothing to worry about. He and the midiwfe said they may be caused by the baby kicking the umbilical cord. They have booked Hayley to go in again to be monitored again tomorrow morning.

Hayley was offered the chance of being induced this evening. We agonsied over this for a few minutes while the midwife checked whether there was a bed for tonight. In the end we decided not to have the induction tonight but to wait as late as possible to give nature chance to take its course.

So Hayley is booked in to be induced on Wednesday evening when she will be 14 days past her due date. In the ideal scenario the prostaglandin gel they apply will take effect by the next day so that she gives birth during the day on Thursday. Of course there are no guarantees.

The notes we were given about induction say that an induced labour is no more likely to lead to a c-section than a normal labour. We were also told it was not necessarily any more painful. Much of the anecdotal evidence on the internet seems to indicate the contrary. However, we think we may have found the reason for this in the following article.

But is it more painful being induced?
Well, that is the big question, and I don't know that there's any good evidence from studies to suggest one way or another. You will hear (particularly on the internet) about how awful inductions are from some women, but others report it being not much different to when they went into labour on their own.
Some places (especially in the US) don't use prostaglandin gels, as it has only recently been licensed (I think that's the reason, please correct me if I'm wrong). This means that contractions are started with an unfavourable cervix, often with the membranes still intact. So, not only is it unnatural for the contractions to start with the cervix still thick, the contractions are less effective.


So maybe the predominance of US internet users has skewed the information slightly. As with so many subjects on the internet, you have to be very careful to understand the context of what you are reading and not just take it as factual and relevant to your own situation.

The re-scheduling of D-Day also looks like it will mean that Hayley's brother and family probably won't be coming up this weekend after all if Hayley is not out of hospital. Consequently as things stand it's possible that none of Hayley's relatives will be seeing the baby for about two or three weeks. She's understandably quite down about this. You picture your family all around you after you have a baby, so having none of them come up for a while would be a big disappoinment. They live 180 miles away so it's not exactly a short trip. So right now we are playing it by ear for this weekend, but if it does turn out that no-one can make it then hopefully the visits of friends and family who are local will be able to make up for this to some degree.