41weeks, 5days

It does feel like the waiting has taken forever. I am physically and emotionally exausted by the constant delay in our baby girl's birth. We so hoped that labour would kick in naturally, and I have been having contractions which are now spaced 10 - 15 mins apart and getting more painful, but delaying induction past today -- for another 24 or 48 hours will drive me crazy as I feel as though I have already been bargaining with my sanity for the past 3 weeks. I do not want to put any risk on her life by delaying things further than being 2 weeks 'overdue'.

The arguement to wait is strong & I feel as though I am giving in or being weak in this, but, as Sandy says, sometimes, by delaying things, it is the baby's way to let us know that they are not able to come out as we intend them to. She could still be too big. Both Geoff and I were induced at our births and delivered 'naturally' by our mothers. I try and convince myself that there is not shame in helping things along.  There is no shame. Are we being too hasty? We cannot know, so we trust Sandy, who we chose to trust with my and our daughters lives - she has been doing this for 25 years and she has seen things go very right as well as very wrong.

I found an article here which states that "there is no evidence to suggest that labour induced with prostaglandin [gel] is any more painful than labour that has started naturally" which gives me a lot of hope that things will progress and unfold at their own pace. My cervix is already soft & has shortened considerably...


I still hold hope that things will kick off & pick up considerably in the next 6 hours... until then, I am trying to relax and focus on being happy about meeting our daughter - hopefully tomorrow x