Induction Tomorrow, Advice on How to Prepare?

[Anonymous]

Heading in at 8 am tomorrow to be induced. Any advice or words of wisdom folks want to offer? Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

I was induced twice and had great births. I knew I wanted the epidural sooner rather than later so we kept the pitocin level fairly low until we know the anesthesioologists would be available. So it you want to get one you may want to ask about that.

[Anonymous]

Eat something high in protein and that has some good fats in it (but not greasy) to help keep your blood sugar elevated and your strength up (I had a bagel with peanut butter and a glass of milk before mine).

Get as much rest/sleep as you can.

Ask for a Heplock rather than a regular IV and for intermittant fetal monitoring rather than constant so you can move around as long as possible before you elect the epi.

Remember that panic can be a natural part of transition (the period immediately preceding pushing). For instance, this might out me on here, but I thought to myself - OMG, I have a human being stuck in my vagina!?!?!?!?!!?!!? and started to freak out. Had to breath and talk myself down and remember that the process does actually work. LOL

And, remember, you do not HAVE to do anything you do not want to do medically. Everything should be an informed choice on your part. It can be easy to be swept away into this feeling that you are out of control and you have to do everything everyone else tells you.

So, breath, breath, breath - and take a sacred pause before making any decisions.

[Anonymous]

Peanut butter eating PP again. Also, it helped me to have the lights lowered in the room.

[Anonymous]

I really appreciate the contributions ladies. Thank you. This was helpful!!

[Anonymous]

What is a heplock IV?

[Anonymous]

It's probably too late to post for you OP, but get a good night's sleep...not only for energy for labor, but because the next 3 months are going to zing by in a blur!

So to eat my own words, neither me nor DH could sleep a wink the night before I was induced. We were too excited and talked/cried most of the night in anticipation/excitement that we were finally going to get our angel that we had been praying for.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's probably too late to post for you OP, but get a good night's sleep...not only for energy for labor, but because the next 3 months are going to zing by in a blur!

So to eat my own words, neither me nor DH could sleep a wink the night before I was induced. We were too excited and talked/cried most of the night in anticipation/excitement that we were finally going to get our angel that we had been praying for.

Good luck!

I am the OP. We just had a wonderful delivery, wonderful baby. And we did the same thing. Did not get ANY sleep the night before! We are paying for it now. But we were so excited.

[Anonymous]

PP here - dear OP, stop reading the boards, put your laptop down, and get some zzz's!

Congrats by the way!

(Looks like you've "graduated" from the Expected Mama forum to the General Parenting one.

[Anonymous]

For the sake of others who might find this thread in a search -- my #1 advice would be to eat something!! Have a good meal before you go in, because they will likely give you nothing but ice once you're admitted. I had an unplanned induction and had to go through labor on a completely empty stomach. I was STARVING ... almost as eager to eat as I was to deliver DD!!

[Anonymous]

Do they still make you empty out your stomach?