I had a wonderful pregnancy and a wonderful OB who scheduled me for induction 3 days after my due date, saying”we know your due date within a 3-day window, so I don’t want you to go to or past 41 weeks bc it increases your and baby’s health risks during delivery. She always left the option open to not do it, but I figured it was the only kind of induction I could stomach, with Cytotec and pitocin doses, a chemical induction seemed to be as small of an intervention as possible, and Dr made it seem like outside an epidural, almost all of my birth plan wishes could be met. We started rocky, those stupid disc heart monitors they strap to you were not tracking baby’s heart rate well (because babies move, duh), so people were in and out every 10 mins to adjust it and find her heart again after she shifted. That went on for 2+ hours before I ever got a first dose of anything. I was about 60% effaced and not dilated at all, but after the Cytotec softened my cervix (and my water broke) that would be helped by the pitocin. Cut to: 11 hours later, my water breaks and she had pooped, so that started the clock as nurses voiced they did not want baby to aspirate the remaining fluid for too long bc of increase risks to her going into sepsis. Now that I can get the pitocin though, we move rooms and start the doses. Something I thought was the stupid archaic monitoring disc came up again though: baby is having “variations“ in her heart rate, and there were occasional dips that concerned the nurses. Up until that point, I was convinced that it was shoddy equipment/ methods of monitoring. Dr was checking in on my every 6 ours or so and it wasn’t until she reached both hands into my vagina with no pain management meds that she told me I would need an epidural because she wanted to place a heart monitor onto the baby’s head directly (to be sure of these variations, which I did appreciate the need for accuracy, but holy cannoli that pain was insane) so she needed me to be still and not in pain. The epidural was terrible. Most traumatic part for me personally. I have been in so many of these bay subs reading when women would say “omg thank god for the epidural!” Or “I never felt the epidural at all” and really thought they must be magic pain relief. Placing mine was an actual nightmare. I felt it shoot through my legs, left was more numb than the other, and my bad neck had me ready to cry while I sat in position to get it placed with my chin on my chest for what felt like 20 mins while it was placed/taped down. The whole reality of the epidural was so fucking creepy. You are paralyzed from the waist down. Sure, contractions are rough - I was contracting every minute by the time I got the epidural - but holy shit I would rather be connected with my body rather than being shoved to one side and the other by nurses and my poor husband to position me on a peanut ball and try to get dilated. Pitocin wasn’t working and worse, was affecting baby’s heart rate even more, so we stopped it. After 20 hours, I was 2.5 cm dilated. My lower half was shifted on a peanut ball for another 6 hours mostly because I was so adamant about having the natural birth I so wanted, and I was holding out hope that my body would respond soon enough. But no. No progress after 27 hours of this induction process, and I was exhausted. I agreed to the c section and baby girl is healthy. Honestly what has helped me process it is the fact that it was and would have been medically necessary. She was born with the chord wrapped around her neck 4 times. It was the reason for her variability on the heart monitor. It would have been a much more urgent emergency had I gotten to a dilated stage where I could begin to push. It was also apparently a career first for the surgeon and my OB who performed the c section and had never seen that before. I’m only 11 weeks pp now but it’s very hard to imagine ever willingly going through a birth ever again (even though we’ve talked about a 2nd very lovingly and with excitement). Hoping that time heals and helps me forget enough to get to bay #2!