Episode 229 Nicole’s VBAC + Induction

Nicole joins us today from Canada. She has had an induced Cesarean birth, an induced VBAC, and is now pregnant with her third baby! Nicole shares her journey with IVF before pregnancy as well as what it’s like to have a subglottic stenosis during pregnancy. 

Meagan gives tips about the best types of induction for VBAC. You can be induced and still confidently achieve your VBAC!

Additional Links

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

The VBAC Link Facebook Community

Full Transcript under Episode Details

Meagan: Hello and welcome to The VBAC Link. This is Meagan and we have our friend Nicole with you today. She is from Canada and she has a VBAC story which is awesome. One of the things I wanted to talk about today within her VBAC story and her Cesarean story is induction. Induction is a hot topic, especially in the VBAC world. 

A lot of providers out there will not induce or they’ll tell people they can’t have a VBAC because of an induction needing to take place or people are scared of induction. I find that a lot of our followers are scared of induction. So at the end, I want to talk a little bit more about induction. 

Review of the Week

Meagan: We are going to get into our review so cute Nicole can share her stories. Today’s review is, let’s see if I can get this to pull up. My computer’s slow here. It’s by Rucca the Silly Frenchie. I love that name. Lucathesillyfrenchie. The title is, “An essential resource if you are VBAC hopeful.” It says, “Writing this review from Columbus, Ohio. I’m a VBAC hopeful with my second daughter due on September 4, 2021.” So Rucca the Silly Frenchie if you are still listening, let us know how things went. 

It says, “After my first daughter was born via Cesarean due to a footling breech position, I knew TOLAC was in my future. This podcast has been beyond educational and inspiring. Be prepared to be addicted to listening to all of the powerful and unique birth stories from strong women around the country. Regardless of what happens with my upcoming labor, I feel empowered knowing I took a more empowered and educated approach with this pregnancy. Thank you, Julie and Meagan.”

Thank you, Rucca the Silly Frenchie for your review. I would love to know how everything went. If you guys have not had a chance to leave us a review, please drop us one. We love them and we love reading them on this podcast. You can leave them wherever you listen to your podcasts. 

Hi birth workers, this one’s for you. In an ideal world, VBAC parents would be treated just like other birthing parents. In today’s world, most medical providers sadly don’t fully support VBAC parents. However, 90% of parents with a prior Cesarean are good candidates to attempt a VBAC. This is why we have created the advanced VBAC doula certification program. In this doula course, we share evidence-based data for you to educate your clients, teach you the tools on helping them how to process past fears and trauma or help them decide if VBAC is even right for them. You will feel better prepared to support them during this beautiful experience. All VBAC-certified doulas are listed on our website so parents know who you are. To learn more, go to thevbaclink.com.

Nicole’s Stories

Meagan: Okay. Nicole, I am so excited. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day. I know that all of you guys here who have recorded your stories are sacrificing time out of your day to be here to share this amazing content for all of these wonderful, hopeful listeners. 

Nicole: Thank you for having me. I’ll jump back to before my Cesarean, but this podcast was such a resource for me in planning for my VBAC so I’m happy to be a part of it in a different way. So thanks for having me.

Meagan: Yes, thank you. 

Nicole: I’ll start from the very beginning. My husband and I were high school sweethearts. We got married in 2015 so about a year after we got married we decided, “Okay. We’re ready to start trying to have a family.” I stopped taking my birth control pill and literally nothing happened. I wasn’t having any cycles or anything like that. So I went to my family doctor. We started inducing cycles and then going from there just on our own. 

It turns out that notwithstanding the fact that we were inducing a bleed, I wasn’t actually ovulating at all. So that’s fine. So then we started doing a couple of rounds of letrozole with her just with timed intercourse. We did five rounds of letrosole with that timing with her and then with no luck or success at that point, she referred us out to a fertility clinic where I was diagnosed with classic PCOS and ovulatory PCOS because I don’t ovulate on my own. 

So we did the first IUI with them. Again, no success with letrozole so that’s fine. We had another one scheduled. After doing all of that, I had stopped responding to the letrozole at the highest dose so then our only option was either superovulation or IVF and it just worked out timing-wise to do IVF and it made more sense to do that. 

We ended up going through IVF and because I had PCOS, the numbers that we got in terms of eggs were really, really good. We got 41 eggs which is insane. 

Meagan: Wow, yeah. 

Nicole: When it was all said and done, we ended up with 10-day five embryos which was really promising so that was good. We had our first transfer, a frozen transfer, in August 2018. It was successful so we were super excited. I had a really good pregnancy. I never felt sick. Aside from the first-trimester fatigue and exhaustion, I felt really, really good. I loved being pregnant. I was one of those annoying people. I never complained about being pregnant. I felt super good. Even at 41 weeks, I wasn’t like, “Oh, get this baby out.” I loved it. It was great. 

Of course, we did all of the things that you’re supposed to do like taking birth classes and all of those other things. I never had a birth plan per se. The birth plan and goal were just a healthy baby and a healthy mom whatever that looks like. Maybe in hindsight, we should have had something more concrete but I’m not sure it would have changed anything. 

Fast forward, I was 40 weeks plus 10 days, so 41 and a half weeks, maybe a centimeter dilated. Baby was just holding up shop. 

Meagan: Very comfortable. 

Nicole: Yeah, too comfortable, arguably. They decided to induce me and I was totally fine with that. They induced me with Cervadil. It was fine. They put in the Cervadil We stayed there at the hospital for about an hour or so. Everything on the monitors looked fine so this one woman said, “Come back when you have contractions for at least an hour lasting a minute,” or whatever the 4-1-1 is.  

Meagan: Yeah. Four minutes apart, one minute long, for at least an hour. I want to add in strength because sometimes it can be 4-1-1 and it’s not really strong so we go in a little bit early because we are seeing 4-1-1. Add strength in there if you are taking notes for when to go. Add strength. 

Nicole: Yeah, so when we left the hospital, it was fine. We went out for lunch and just hung around at home. Other things they told us before we left the hospital was if it feels like baby is not moving, if your mother’s intuition kicks in, to come back and they’ll make sure everything was fine and they’d go from there. 

It was around suppertime and I started to feel like, “Okay. Maybe baby’s not moving as much as she usually does or maybe I’m just being paranoid.” I said, “Let’s just go in. Let’s double-check just to be safe. I’m not going to get any sleep if I’m worried about her not moving so I’d rather just go in and get it checked.” We went in to get checked a little after supper so in the early evening. That was fine. 

They hooked us up to the monitors and everything looked okay. I could feel the contractions but I wasn’t really in any pain. I wouldn’t describe it as being painful yet. Baby looked really good and everything so they said, “Okay. You can go home” because I was still, I think, only a centimeter or maybe 2 being generous. They said, “Yeah, go home,” on the same kind of instructions so that’s fine. 

We went home. A few hours went by at home and now the contractions were quite a bit stronger and quite painful actually. I didn’t want to rush off to the hospital again because we had only just been there two or three hours before that but the contractions were very painful and very long. So I had one of those little contraction counters or whatever on your phone and I wasn’t sure if I was recording them correctly. I was logging them at two minutes but I was like, “That doesn’t sound right. That seems long.” I was like, “I can’t imagine spending the night at home with these feelings like this. I need something for my pain.”

I actually had my husband call the hospital and say, “Okay. This is what’s going on. If we come in, are we able to give her some pain meds and send her back home?” or send me back home if I’m not dilated enough yet to warrant admitting us. They said, “Well, maybe but you were already here for lack of fetal movement so there would be some hesitation about giving you something for it like morphine for example because then you are really probably not going to be feeling the baby. But come in. We will take a look at you and then go from there.” 

So okay, that’s fine. We ended up going back to the hospital maybe around midnight or shortly before then. It was quite late. I could barely walk through these contractions. They were so painful. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t imagine it getting any worse but I’d never done this before. Maybe my tolerance for pain isn’t as high as I thought it was or would like to think it is so that’s fine. 

We got back to labor and delivery. Right from the moment they hooked me back up onto the monitors in the triage room, you could just tell the vibe and the mood were completely different as soon as they looked at the strip. My contractions were lasting anywhere from 2-3 minutes. More than not as I was having 3, 4, 5 of them in a row without any break in between which was then really hard on baby because there was just no amount of time for baby to recover. 

So before one contraction would basically fully come down, another one would start. 

Meagan: Wow. 

Nicole: They were worried that the Cervadil has essentially hyper-stimulated my uterus. 

Meagan: Yes, that’s what I was going to say. It can do that. Cytotec and Cervadil can hyperstimulate. 

Nicole: Yep. So the first thing they did was take the Cervadil out. They said, “Okay. We’re just going to give you a little bit and see if things go down.” They didn’t. 

Meagan: Yes. But even Cervadil is less likely to stay in your body as long because it is removed so that’s a nice thing about Cervadil. 

Nicole: Yeah. They took it out and it didn’t change anything so then they gave me a dose of, I think it’s called nitroglycerin. It’s a spray. I don’t know if it comes in different forms but essentially it was described as what they can use in an attempt to relax the uterus and stop it from contracting. 

Meagan: They sprayed in your vagina? 

Nicole: In my mouth. 

Meagan: I was like, wow. Okay, in your mouth. Okay. 

Nicole: I think it’s also used for cardiac patients because it has the same effect on the heart if someone’s heart is having a heart attack or something. 

Meagan: If it’s too high or something. 

Nicole: Yeah, don’t quote me on that. I’m certainly not a medical professional but that was my understanding on that. Anyway, so they gave me something like five doses of that. Again, this is at this point a train that had left the station and nothing was working. Throughout this process, they were having me change positions so I’m being asked to go on my side and my hands and knees. I remember at one point, there was so much commotion and moving parts. 

I’m still having these super intense and painful contractions that they had asked me to move in some way and I said, “Okay, I just need a minute. I just need to catch my breath. I just need a minute.” The nurse very sternly but kindly looked at me and said, “We don’t have a minute. When we ask you to do something, you have to do it. We ask because baby is not doing well.” That’s kind of when despite all of the craziness, I clued in. I was like, “Okay. This is obviously maybe more urgent than I appreciate in the circumstance. 

So it was intense and scary. They decided that even though I was only 2 centimeters just to admit me because what are they going to do, send me home? They put me in a labor room because, until this point, we had just been in a triage room. Things kept going from bad to worse. At some point, it was decided that they would break my waters so that they could put in the little internal monitor to baby’s head. They did that. I had a few more doses of nitro. Throughout this whole process, I made it very clear, “I am pro-epidural. As soon as you can give me one, I want one. Give me one right now.”

They said, “Okay, we hear you but technically you aren’t even 3 centimeters dilated yet so you’re not even considered to be in active labor so we can’t give you an epidural yet.” I said, “Okay. Just so you know, I want one as soon as you are willing to give it to me.” I’m not sure how much time actually passed after. They broke my water and looked at the monitor until the call was made, “Okay. It’s time to get baby out.” But I kind of just remember the OB who was on call coming up to me. He was this big, intimidating man. He had such a gentle and soft voice. He said, “Look. Baby is not doing very well. I think we need to go in and get her. She’s not tolerating labor and it’s really important that we get her out as soon as we can.” He’s like, “Unfortunately, that means we are going to put you to sleep.” I was like, “Okay, that’s fine.” 

As soon as the words left my mouth, it was like, whoosh. A team of people rushed in. Somebody was in my face with a waiver that they were asking me to sign which in the moment, I get. But I was just like, “This is ridiculous.” Someone else was taking off all of my jewelry. My husband was being ushered out of the room. It was madness. We are running down the hall to the operating room which is, in our hospital, literally down the hall. 

So I’m on the table. They’re doing all of their counts or whatever they do. I’m basically awake and the anesthetist is sitting right by my head. He was complaining about how long everything is taking and how I should already be asleep and how we need to get the baby out which was terrifying. I remember he kept saying to me, “Just close your eyes. Just close your eyes.” I had never had surgery before so laying in this chaotic mess with someone telling me to close my eyes was so unsettling. I just remember being so scared to close my eyes because my husband wasn’t in the room with me.

Meagan: And they never let him in, right?

Nicole: They let him in after our daughter was born. 

Meagan: Being separated, how did that make you feel and being put to sleep?

Nicole: It was scary. I obviously wasn’t worried about my husband. I didn’t think at the moment about how he must have felt. I’m sure it was scary for him too. It just all happened so fast. There was hardly any time to feel anything other than fear because you almost didn’t have enough time to process any other emotion. But I just remember laying there. You’re strapped to the table naked, having these 10-minute-long contractions. I was almost begging them at this point to put me out because it was so awful. My husband wasn’t there so I was so thankful that there was this one nurse. I just remember hearing her voice come from somewhere behind me. I must have had this terrified look on my face because I had this anesthesiologist saying, “Close your eyes. Close your eyes.” 

She said, “It’s okay. You can keep them open. Everything’s fine.” It was the only moment of relief or calm that I felt in that entire OR. Everyone was doing their counts. Somebody must have asked where the sponge is for an antiseptic or whatever they use on your belly. The response from across the room was, “Nope. We’re just going to dump and cut.” I was like, “Oh.” All of a sudden, you feel this cold splash come across your midsection. 

Thankfully, they put me out shortly after that so I could stop listening to these conversations that were happening around me. But it was very scary. It turns out that baby was born a couple of minutes later. When it was all said and done, from the time the call was made that they needed to do the section to when she was born was less than 10 minutes. In my mind, it felt like this eternity but it wasn’t. It was quite quick. 

They brought my husband into the OR just as they were walking my daughter over to the warmer. He got to see her right away. She was totally fine. Everything was fine with her which was nice. They heated her. She went up to the nursery while they finished the section and were stitching me back up. I woke up a few hours later and they brought my daughter and my husband over to the recovery to see me after. 

I had a really good recovery in terms of C-sections. 

Meagan: That’s great. 

Nicole: Yeah, it was really nice. I don’t actually remember being in any pain after the fact either in the hospital or at home but I did struggle in the weeks that followed bonding with the baby which really took me for a loop. We had spent so much time and emotional energy and money trying to have our family and trying to have a baby. Then here’s this baby in front of me and it sounds awful to say now to feel almost nothing, to feel indifferent. I didn’t have this overwhelming sense of loving joy. 

I certainly didn’t want any harm or anything or have thoughts of harm that way, but the easiest way for me to describe it is that I felt indifferent. It didn’t really matter if she was crying to me. I didn’t really care if she was there or if I got to hold her or if someone else held her all day. I was indifferent. 

Meagan: Yeah. I call that a disconnect. You’re just not fully connected. It’s not that you're not recognizing that she’s there or anything, you’re just not feeling that full connection that we hear about. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Meagan: But that’s also really common when you’ve had the type of Cesarean that you had or just Cesarean in general too. It happens in vaginal birth too. 

Nicole: I thought that was the case at the moment. I did think it was because I really didn’t have a birthing experience. At one moment, I was pregnant. The next moment as far as I was concerned, I woke up and I’m not without anything really connecting the two. That was kind of the struggle emotionally for those first couple of weeks. It kind of resolved itself around 7 or 8 weeks. It’s never been an issue and I’m obviously obsessed with my daughter and I love her. Thinking back on those memories and feelings is hard. Once we got through it, it was good. 

So that was the birth of our daughter. Shortly after she turned one, we started talking about having another child. We always knew that we wanted more than one. I come from a family of three and my husband comes from a family of four. We always thought that in an ideal world, more than one would be great. 

We did another frozen transfer in August 2020 which was successful so that was really exciting again. Similar to my previous pregnancy again, I felt really good. I was never sick. I loved being pregnant. Then I found this podcast and I listened to it religiously. I knew that I didn’t want to have an elective section. I really wanted a VBAC. That was the goal in terms of if I didn’t have a birth plan the first time, the birth plan the second time around was a VBAC. 

I found a doctor who said that she would deliver our baby. She wasn’t delivering babies with our first but she was back delivering them. She said that even if she wasn’t on call that day that she would come just for us to do ours which was really nice. She was super supportive and very much like, “If you need to be induced, we can talk about that.” She wasn’t insistent that I go into labor on my own or by a certain date or whatever the case was. I felt very much in good hands with her. 

Meagan: Yeah in not putting those restrictions on ever from the get-go. 

Nicole: Yes. That was really nice. It was such a weight off of my shoulders from the beginning. But it was the fall of 2020 I guess it was that both personally and many people around me noticed that my breathing was really poor. Part of me just chalked it up to being extremely out of shape. I was a new mom. I wasn’t doing as much as I had. But it really hit me when I started noticing that when I would read my daughter her books at her bedtime. You know toddler books. There are five words on every page, but I would have to stop between each page to catch my breath just sitting at rest. 

Meagan: That’s concerning. 

Nicole: Yeah. So I thought that maybe there was more to this. We went. Through a series of referrals, we ended up at ENT. He said, “This looks like something but I’m not one that can fix it for you,” so he referred us to a further specialist just in the next practice over. I was diagnosed with what’s called subglottic stenosis. 

Meagan: I’ve never heard of that. 

Nicole: In the simplest form, it’s a narrowing of your airway. It’s not scar tissue from my understanding but just normal tissue kind of like an overgrowth of normal tissue that causes this narrowing. It was likely caused by my intubation during my Cesarean. 

Meagan: During your Cesarean. 

Nicole: Yep. There was just something about my airway that didn’t like being touched and this was the result. The specialist informed me that it was about a third of the size that it should be and that it would be dangerous to attempt to labor without having a surgery to open it back up. 

Meagan: Wow. 

Nicole: That was another hard decision but we decided to go ahead and get that surgery while I was pregnant. I got that surgery. It’s called a dilation where they open it up with a laser and a balloon and all of this stuff. I had that surgery at 24 weeks and it was amazing how much better I could breathe. I didn’t appreciate how bad my breathing was until they fixed it. You don’t realize how much of my day and my time I spent just thinking about breathing so that was really nice. 

Then we were given the green light to TOLAC and try for a VBAC. The rest of the pregnancy was uneventful. I ended up going overdue again. I was 40 weeks and 7 days, I guess 41 weeks. It was decided that at that point, I would be induced because I was only a centimeter dilated. There were no signs of labor. So, fine. 

This time obviously though, they said, “Under no circumstances can we use Cervadil,” so we decided that I would be induced with a Foley bulb. We went to the hospital. They put in the Foley bulb that morning. They said, “Okay. Come back when it falls out.” It fell out a couple of hours later that afternoon. We went back to the hospital. I should add that during my pregnancy after my dilation surgery, we had an anesthesia consult to make sure, “Okay, what can we do to avoid another intubation?” It was decided, “When you come into the hospital, we’ll give you an epidural probably earlier than would usually be offered just in an abundance of caution to try to do everything we can to avoid intubating you.” So that was fine. 

We got to the hospital. They started me on a low dose of Pitocin. Contractions started to look like they were getting longer again and not really following that nice pattern that they like to see. Our nurse started getting a little nervous and concerned and suggested that we call anesthesia to do the epidural which sure. I’m totally on board with. I was proepidural from the very beginning with the both of them. From my perspective, I didn’t need to make my life or job harder than it already was. 

Anesthesia came in and gave me the epidural. It was great. I felt nothing. Then the contractions actually fell into a really nice pattern after so no one was worried. We hung out for two or three hours at the hospital again contracting. I had no idea. I never felt anything. At one point, I said to my husband, “It feels like I peed a little bit.” He was like, “You have a catheter in.” I was like, “Yeah, but I feel wet.” It turns out that my water broke on its own which was nice but I didn’t have any urge to push or anything like that. 

They said, “We’ll let you just hang out for a couple of ours. Just let us know if you feel that urge.” That urge never came so they said, “Let’s start pushing anyways because it’s been a little bit since your water broke.” I said, “Okay.” We pushed for about an hour and a half and then at that point again, baby started having some decels and it looked like baby was starting to not tolerate labor that well. 

Slowly, the vibe became a little more tense. The message started to be, “Okay. It’s time to get this baby out. We have to push this baby out sooner than later.” At some point, the call was made to use the vacuum to help that happen sooner. That was all explained to us and we said, “Okay, sure.” The vacuum was used and then the baby came out two pushes later. 

When my son was born, I didn’t get to hold him right away. He wasn’t crying. They took him over to the warmer right away. He had no tone. His body was completely limp. He wasn’t crying. He was breathing, but only barely and had the flared nostrils and all of those telltale signs that he was working really, really hard. 

Meagan: The traction and all of that. 

Nicole: Yeah, so they had him on the bag and worked on him for about 15 minutes. In that time, he never cried. He never perked up so it was decided that he needed to go off to the NICU to get some extra attention there. 

My husband went with him to the NICU. I stayed behind. I ended up having a third-degree tear that required some attention. They took me up to the NICU once I was all ready to go a couple of hours later. It turns out that he had a severe meconium aspiration so he actually ended up spending four days on a ventilator and was in the NICU for nine days. 

Meagan: Was there any sign of meconium when your water broke?

Nicole: Not when my water broke. Before, I think right before the call was made to use the vacuum, I do remember our doctor saying, “It looks like there is a lot of mec in there,” but there was no mention of it when my water broke. 

Meagan: So maybe during labor. 

Nicole: So I’m assuming it was sometime after that but during the labor that it happened. That was a scary experience, but he’s totally fine now. He’s a happy, strong, healthy boy. We just call him as being built to last because nothing phases him. But my VBAC wasn’t necessarily what I had envisioned but ultimately it was really successful and a better emotional experience which is weird to describe because there are a lot of emotions around having a child in the NICU. I didn’t have any issues bonding with him. I felt that connection to care for him right away. 

If anything, if nothing else, I’m hoping that having that VBAC, it will help what will hopefully be my next VBAC better. I’m actually currently expecting. 

Meagan: Awesome! Congratulations!

Nicole: Yep, so we’re hoping that the third time is the charm. Yes, so I’m just shy of 31 weeks. We are due April 1st. 

Meagan: Really soon! Actually, right when this episode airs you will have a baby. 

Nicole: This kid is probably going to be late too. 

Meagan: You’ll either have a baby or just about having a baby. Oh, so fun. 

Nicole: Or will be preparing for one. My husband and I always joke that getting the babies in and getting them out usually takes quite a bit of work, but baking them is where I thrive. 

Meagan: Yeah. 

Nicole: The plan again, even with everything that happened with my son, the recovery was quite difficult with a third-degree tear, but we’re going for another VBAC. We’re hoping like I said, if anything, my son will help pave the way for hopefully a smoother, less eventful experience. 

Meagan: Absolutely. Your chances are higher of that. Sometimes that first vaginal birth, even if there is no previous Cesarean, can be a little longer or have things like forceps and vacuum and things like that. It can happen. So hopefully like you said, it will pave the way and be a beautiful redemption. They all have been great but a redemption birth of the two with less drama maybe. 

Nicole: Less drama. Less excitement. I just want a nice, run-of-the-mill birth. But yes so it will be good. I’m glad that I experienced it. I wouldn’t change it. 

Meagan: Yeah. You are still happy with the outcomes. 

Nicole: Yeah. I’m still happy we had the VBAC. Everyone is happy and ultimately, that has always been our thing. Healthy baby, healthy mom. Whatever that looks like, we can deal with but hopefully it looks like a VBAC. 

Meagan: You’ll have to let us know. Definitely let us know. 

Nicole: Yeah, I will for sure. 

Meagan: That’s awesome. I want to talk a little bit about induction. I’ve been taking notes along the way just about things that you’ve said. Right before I get into induction, something that you had said during your first, something that they said to you is that they were just going to dump and cut. You heard that and then you were gone. Those longlasting words, I think it is so important to note to everybody listening especially if you are a provider, that words matter. Words matter. Even though you may not be thinking that something that you say that your patient is going to hold onto, it’s possible that they will. 

I don’t think that you held onto dump and cut, but I heard that and that is a very scary thing. “We’re just going to dump and cut.” I just want to remind everybody to please be mindful of your words when you are with someone especially in a vulnerable state. 

But induction. I want to talk about induction. I just want to talk about what ACOG says and going over 40 weeks and stuff like that. Because Nicole is proof that induction can happen and VBAC can happen. An induction can happen and a VBAC can happen with no complications. Sometimes it can’t and we don’t know why. We can’t always blame induction at all, but I don’t want you to be scared of induction. I don’t want you to be so terrified of induction that it consumes you because I know that some of our listeners are in that space especially because they had an induction that spiraled down and went Cesarean. 

I want to talk about how ACOG concludes that, “Induction of labor between 41 and 7 and 42 and 7 can be considered. 42 weeks to 42 weeks and 7 days is recommended given evidence of increased morbidity and mortality.” Something has changed over time and that is the ARRIVE trial. We have a blog about the ARRIVE trial and we have a blog about induction. We have a blog about going over 40 weeks. 

Since this has happened, we see a lot more people at 40 weeks and if they haven’t had a baby yet, providers are rushing to get babies out. I just want to let you know that doesn’t have to happen, but if you choose to induce, that’s okay too. Just like Nicole said in the beginning of her induction story, no she didn’t qualify for Cytotec or Cervadil because she is a TOLAC, but she had a great induction with a Foley catheter or a Cook catheter. Depending on where you are at, everyone calls it something different. Those are really great alternatives. You do have to be dilated a little. Sometimes they can give Pitocin a little bit and then give a Foley. 

But talk with your providers. I encourage you to talk with your providers. I feel like her provider really said, “Okay. Here’s what we should do and this is why.” It worked out in Nicole’s benefit. I want everyone to know that induction doesn’t have to be scary. Right, Nicole?

Nicole: I don’t think the spiraling with our son had anything to do with the induction. 

Meagan: It just happened. Sometimes we have babies that have a fast transition or during pushing and meconium is really common too. So yeah. I know people who go into spontaneous labor and have meconium and I know people with meconium aspiration with induction. It just happens. I felt like there are lots of people on here who are living proof that induction is possible but Nicole just said it right here. She’s been induced and she had two very different circumstances with induction. Take it slow. Speak with your providers. Go over all of your options and remember that words matter.

Closing

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