Grrr...tell me I'm not the only one.

I'm at 39 weeks and slooowwly progressing, but at least I'm progressing (a little over two cm., and about 50% effaced). I went to my regular appt. today and my doctor twice mentioned I "could" or "might want to" schedule. I'm at 39 weeks! Two reasons she cited were my 3-y.o. daughter's childcare and going two weeks past my due date probably not being my best interest (as that's what happened with baby #1 when I was induced).

It's annoying. It makes me feel like a failure even though I KNOW it is not true. I know it could happen next week or in three weeks and I don't want another induction scenario.

So I mentioed this before in a another thread. A friend's wife was just induced at about 38 weeks, after being told their baby would likely weigh 8 pounds. He did, or at least the parents said so in the short email announcement (truth or face-saving, we'll never know).

Just an informal poll. . . who else has gone through this with their doctor? Do they look for just any reason to make their workload more manageable or am I blowing this out of proportion?

I think I am missing something. I know I was induced with my first child, but that is because my water was slowly leaking. But it only took 28 hours after that to deliver

Don't let them talk you into it if you feel deep down that nothing is going wrong. Ask for concrete evidence why it would be best for you to induce now, as opposed to waiting for things to happen naturally. Don't give in to your original plan. Read as much as you can so you have reasons to counter anything she says.

Do you feel okay?

No, JennyMeg, you're certainly not the only one, sad to say.

Keep the faith, my dear. Yes, your body is progressing as it should, your baby is fine, your daughter could well use the experience of her mother giving birth in the way Nature intended.

Some mamas have ten-month pregnancies, and their babies come out just fine. My own second son (the first was induced, then c/section when I didn't progress) arrived on 2/20, and my LMP due date was 1/24! He arrived naturally, and in his own damned good time (after 30+ hours of labor, but still, on his time, not any doctor's).

Yes, childcare for your daughter is an issue that I hope you have handled. I hope for you that you have trusted friends/family who will be willing to pick her up whenever you need and keep her as long as is necessary, being loving and wonderful to her as you labor so you don't have to worry about her at all.

And why the hell is it "not in your best interest" to go past due date?

No, darling, you're not a failure: you're a paragon of virtue and patience and motherhood! And yes, you could progress and have this baby yet today, if it's the right time. But if it isn't the right time, taking the doctor's drugs will not make anyone's life easier -- certainly not your baby's, not yours, and maybe not even the doctor's, when it comes right down to it.

Keep posting! Vent here as much as you need to and get the support you want here and elsewhere!

Luci

It just dawned on me that you said your Dr. said that you should be induced because of your daughters child care. what bull

i was scheduled to be induced because i had gestational diabetes and according to the technician, my baby already was about 9 lbs. that scared the hell out of me! i stayed in the hospital overnight and was to be induced early in the morning, needless to say my body took over and went into natural labour on its own while i was there. and my baby only weighed 7 lbs. do what you think is best for you and your family and dont feel pressure to rush things along. due dates are supposed to be flexible within a 2 week period so you wont really be over-due at 41-42 weeks. as long as baby is healthy and not in distress, you and your body know best! keep us updated!!

I was induced at 37 weeks with my second. The doc said he would weigh ten and a half pounds and I had had enough. Truth was, he had had enough of me. I had a helacious delivery and Dominic was jaundiced. I should have sued.
I delivered my ten pound daughter with no problem.

I just don't understand why all the fuss doctors make over heavy babies. The truth of the matter is that, in most cases, as long as you can deliver the head, the baby could be 15 pounds and it would still be easier to deliver the body than the head.

Am I right ladies? Delivering the head, for me, was the hardest part of delivering. The body just slithered out.

Of course, there is always the problem of a hooked shoulder, where the baby's shoulder gets stuck under the pelvis, but midwives know to turn a birthing mother onto her knees and apply pressure to the pelvis to open it out a bit and that usually takes care of most stuck shoulder problems. Doctors just aren't as smart and I think it's babies with badly stuck shoulders under OB care who suffer traumatic consequences.

Anyway, I am completely agreed: let the baby cook till s/he decides s/he's done. If you want to help your body along, however, get out walking, do some squats and have some great sex - if that doesn't help, induction is not the answer for sure.

My doctor was a money grubbing bitch from hell who wanted to "give me some drugs" to "push me into labor" the week I was due, just so I would have the baby at a convenient time for her, on her day in the hospital so she'd get the $$$ for it. She never even used the word "induced". I `shudder to think what she gets away with with her less educated patients.

Doctors do all kinds of messed up stuff like that. Trust your baby and your body!

Thanks for all of your replies. I feel like I *know* the truth, but they get when you are vulnerable and no one else is around. I have never felt so anti-doctor, you know?

Please keep posting, because I seriously think this is a growing trend people don't talk about, so they don't know how frequently inductions are "NEEDED." Everyone gets to the point in pregnancy where they are just tired of being pregnant, so yeah, having a trusted doctor tell you it could be over so quickly can be hard to resist.

Oh, and I cancelled my appointment for next week because she suggested she could stretch my cervix. Why?? I did some looking around and found this is not desireable either.

No more appointments unless I seriously go two weeks past my due date.

"Stretch your cervix" = "stripping of membranes" = forcibly reaming out your most private parts = risking infection = attempting to jump start labor instead of letting your cervix slowly and gently open like the beautiful flower that it is!

I'm really glad you cancelled your appointment! You might want to consider, instead of planning to go in if you're two weeks overdue, just leaving the option open of not going back there until and unless you (a) start labor, or (b) sense that there's something wrong. Because you might start labor tomorrow (wow!), and you probably won't go two weeks past date (although most first babies go four days past, if I remember correctly). And if you're paying attention to your body's and your baby's signals, which you appear to be doing, then you're likely to know if something goes awry ... and THEN you can ask the interventionists' opinions.

But if you don't want them intervening when it isn't necessary, don't go giving them the opportunity.

Did you know you can check your own dilation? If you reach inside and touch your cervix (be sure to have extra-clean hands while doing this!), a non-pregnant cervix will feel kinda like the tip of your nose. Near the end of your pregnancy, it will feel more like a soft pair of lips puckered up for a sweet kiss! If you can easily insert one fingertip inside, it's 1 cm dilated; two fingertips = 2cm, approximately. Midwives know, with practice, how to measure wider (it's a matter of experiencing repeatedly the appropriate positions of their fingers, not about inserting ever more fingers inside there! They're measuring diameter, not volume.) Also, be aware that the way different caregivers measure is sometimes widely varied: a less-experienced person might think you're dilated to eight when a more experienced person might judge the cervix to be open much less.

One more tip: when you reach eight centimeters (called "transition" -- the last two cm are that time just before it's time to push the baby out), the best "symptom" is a marked change in how you feel emotionally -- when a woman reaches transition is when she's most likely to say "I can't do this anymore! I can't take it! I want to go home!" or whatever ... and that's the time when it's most important for a husband/partner/doula/caregiver to say, "You CAN do it! You ARE birthing this baby! You're in transition, and you're very close to being able to push this baby out! Hang in there, sweetie!" The panic is an important signpost, more important than what (particularly inexperienced) fingertips can judge of dilation. In fact, sometimes women report that they've recently had their dilation checked and reported significantly less than 8 cm, and then they get to this stage, and their (nurses or doctors, usually) caregivers tell them it can't possibly be time yet ... and then they're pushing, so their bodies' and their psyches' clues were on-target regardless of what the "professionals" say.

Labor is not a straight-line progression: some women jump from 3 cm to 10 in a matter of an hour, many progress relatively constantly about 1 cm an hour, while others hang out at 7 cm for a day or more before proceeding to transition and pushing the baby out in a big hurry (that'd be me!).

All this said, and alongside my strong pro-homebirth midwife/anti-OB position, I do feel a tiny twinge of worry about offering all this advice when I'm not your caregiver and I'm not even a professional (just someone who's read ALOT and had my own experiences). It's not that I worry there's anything wrong specifically with your baby or with you, but in general. Birth is safe, yeah, and in probably 98% of the cases, should be left to its own natural progression. But birth is also a part of life, which is unpredictable and includes the experience of "bad things," the exceptions that prove the rule. When we become pregnant, we place ourselves at risk of the most heartbreaking experiences. So trust your body, trust the signs it and your baby give you, and if YOU feel there's something wrong, get yourself to a doctor or hospital right away, and don't imagine that some advice you read in the Internet is more important.

Because, in the end, nobody's more important than you and your baby.

Keep the faith!

Luci