Past my due date and need some encouragement?

Do not let them force you into induction unless you’re 2 weeks past your due date! Do not let them scare you about how low your amniotic fluid is or how big the baby is getting. Just don’t. If you don’t want to be induced, stick to your gut. Stick to your birth plan. Besides, they will try to force you to do a c-section whether or not you’re induced. Remain resistant to that, as well.

^ This. It’s really a range. Hard due dates have more to do with the business of childbirth than any true healthy gestation period.

I, of course, agree with the sound advice above. I just want to add that with my last one, I needed to be induced/augmented due to timing with my blood thinner. While I did end up getting an epidural, which I hadn’t wanted, it wasn’t so bad and I was able to give birth myself and avoid a c-section. It all turned out fine.

Here’s your encouragement mama. It’s your third baby and you know what you want. Good for you for sticking to your guns and not hurrying this baby along.

By the way… has there been any question of your dates? Has the baby measured small/large?

@Cupcake According to the 6 ultrasounds I’ve taken, due to some complications (low iron + GBS), predicted Sept 23 but if you go from my last period/cycle it would be Sept 20. The baby is now between 6 – 7 lbs according to the ultrasound.

For what it’s worth…

I went the full two weeks post dates with my son. He was 10lbs, 5 oz, with shoulder dystocia – meaning, his shoulders were so wide he got stuck behind my pelvic bone. It took 37 hours, but I did deliver naturally.

Oh, and the ultrasound before my induction said seven pounds, too. They must have been measuring the placenta by mistake. Haha.

My ultrasounds all along predicted 9–10 lbs, but the one at my amnio (the day before delivery) predicted 7 as well.

Like @Simone_De_Beauvoir said above, there’s no need to induce for 2 weeks after your due date (although they might use the 9/20 date to determine the 2 weeks instead of the revised 9/23) unless they expect the baby to be too large for a reasonable exit. I, for one, would never go 2 weeks after my due date because I have huge kids. Sounds like you’re fine for now.

Ask someone to drive you in a vehicle and go over speed bumps not fast though, pretty much slow down and drive over them I know it sounds weird but it does help….

I’ve been induced (early, for health reasons) all three times, and it really wasn’t as awful as I’d feared. My longest labor was 12 hours, and I delivered all three vaginally and with no epidurals. If it has to happen, don’t panic. Good luck!

I was induced with my first and only child. It was fine…I didn’t feel anything until they actually stopped giving me the Pitocin, and for whatever reason my body decided it wanted to start having contractions. I was induced around 7a, and had my son at 5:29p the next evening. The only downside was that I had to push him down, so there was pushing for that before the real pushing began.

Just go with what your doctor says is safe regarding your baby being over. Don’t be afraid of being induced. Labor is labor – it all hurts like hell. :)

Edit: I just wanted to say that I was induced because my son was so big! He was due Dec 16th, I was induced on the 10th, he was born the 11th. He came out at 9lb 10oz, and actually got stuck for a little bit there, but I was able to push him out finally. I originally thought I was getting a C-section due to my son’s size throughout the pregnancy, but at my last visit my OB wanted me to at least try to deliver naturally. I’m really glad he pressed for that!! lol

If not for C sections, my children would not have been born and I would have died in childbirth. The opening in in my pelvis was too small to allow a birth. With C sections, you don’t have the pain of contractions, but you don’t bounce back as quickly from the surgery. I say, do it naturally if you can, but don’t be stubborn to the point of it being dangerous to either you or the baby. Tell your doctor what you prefer, but listen to his/her advice as things progress.

If you have an induction-happy doctor, let me suggest you ask for a non-stress test and/or biophysical profile rather than just digging in your heels and refusing induction.

My daughter came 5 days after her due date. After 4 weeks of prodromal labor I was SO SURE she’d come early, and no such luck! I tried everything to get her out and finally found the magic solution—I scheduled a massage for 9am and a manicure for 12pm. Went into labor at 4:30am instead. And if it doesn’t work, hey, you get a massage and a manicure :)

I used castor oil. Tasted awful and the craps after taking iron shots were gross but it worked.
I’ve known several women who went into labor after getting pedicures. Something about the reflexology I guess.
Good luck!!
My second was induced and it HURT! In retrospect it pisses me off because the doctor just wanted to go to a baseball game so he sped it along.

I personally would not wait too much longer, but I would wait a few more days, assuming the baby is not already huge, and it sounds like it isn’t from what you wrote. If the baby gets too large you can wind up getting a c-section anyway, so in that case you might prefer the induction. Although, sometimes inducing doesn’t go smoothly and you can wind up with a C. It seems to me you are not quite at the point where you have to call it yet, unless the doctor is just wanting to fit you into his schedule. In my opinion OB’s should not be overly focused on their schedule. Part of the business.

You say according to your last period you are due Sept 20, were your cycles a perfect 28 days? If you usually had longer cycles, like 30 days, your due date based on ovulation would be later.

@JLeslie I am ashamed to say that I never really paid attention to how long my monthly friend was around. LOL. Um, but, I do know that my conception date was definitely after December 18th. My husband was away for the first half of the month and came home on the 18th and that was the first time for the month that we, well, you know how guys get when they’ve been away for a long time (cough). So that’s why too I’m kinda holding out a bit. Figuring the conception date happened later in the month and the doctor’s date is a bit early.

I’d wait.

@livingchoice No shame in not keeping track. :).

I’m hoping you’re in labor since you didn’t check in today.

I was induced for my daughter. It’s not as bad as it sounds basically they break your water and you go into labour at least that is what happened to me…if you know the mucous plug has broken then maybe the baby is ready… I was 17 no one told me about the mucous plug..freaked me out, I was not prepared for that!

I hope all goes well for you and baby. :-)

@KaY_Jelly , that’s way different than Pitocin for inducing labor.

That depends. I was 18 hours in before they broke my water.

I was induced with cervadil and pitocin.

Pitocin HURTS!

@Judi Well yes I’m sure times have changed..my daughter is 18. TBH they could of given me anything I was 17, all I cared about was the fact that I was in a lot of pain, I honestly do not even remember…I do remember my water breaking at the hospital which was different then my 25 yr old sister who had just previously had 2 kids and her water broke in front of me.

I’m aching to babble, but I’m determined to not show horror stories on a support thread.

Ok well I definitely remember now…my doctor did this To me, sounds like a quicker more natural alternative and maybe a much more nicer version than Pitocin.

@Seek_Kolinahr, maybe we can start a new thread to swap war stories?

The first two times I was induced, it was just the doc breaking my water and putting a softening gel on my cervix. The last time required pitocin, too, and it did hurt a lot more, but still wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.

@KaY_Jelly Times haven’t changed, your “induction” triggered normal labor. Women are afraid of the drugs because the labor with those drugs tends to be very painful, more than natural labor. I think, and this part I am not sure of, it depends on how the cervix looks, and maybe some mother factors, whether they can just break the water and hope it triggers labor.

@JLeslie That makes sense. If you ask me though I think now that I am actually an adult I would prefer not to have the drugs for being induced. :( I have a high pain tolerance and labor is painful already and you are saying it seriously can get more painful? How much more painful can it get? :/ yikes
I hope this girl had her baby by now…♫♪dun dun dun duuuu♫♪ Its a boy right?? ♂♀

@KaY_Jelly Pretty much everyone I know who has done it with and without petocin says the petocin is extremely painful. The pains come on faster and stronger from what I understand. I never birthed a baby, so I only speak from what other women have told me, and it seems to agree with what some jellies have said here.

Can’t say for sure… I have no idea what a natural contraction feels like. I never even had Braxton Hicks.

@Seek_Kolinahr I had both. Braxton Hicks actually weren’t that bad. My contractions actually started before my water broke. They were really strange at first like a light fluttering in my stomach or something like that but then they got more and more and more and oh you get the picture.

@JLeslie They are like the worst charlie horse ever. That’s my description, other women may have different descriptions.

It was something like having a person standing on a spade that was being twisted into my spine. For thirty five hours.

And that was cake compared to the aftermath.

@KaY_Jelly So, you weren’t really induced, they just broke your water. My mom also went into labor with my sister, but her water didn’t break on it’s own. She refers to it as, “they had to break my water.”

@JLeslie No my memory is not that great from that time. It was not the prime moment of my life…not like many other women so I tend to think I remember and sometimes I find I even make parts up or think they happened and sometimes I even mix stories together. I don’t remember a crochet hook looking thing like in that picture I provided above, my version is much more sadistic looking :/

@KaY_Jelly No worries. I know what it is like to have the memory fog over times in our lives that are stressful and confusing. :)

Final Update:
@JLeslie Sorry for the late up date. LOL

I gave birth on the 27th of September. My due date was the 23rd. Everything went well. The day of I was having a lot of contractions but thought they were the Hickey ones. Then my water broke when I went to have what I thought was a BM on the toilet. When I reached the hospital I was already 8cm dilated! and gave birth 1½ hours after. Nice and quick.

Thanks to all for your input/comments/support/wise cracks etc.

I love Fluther!

@livingchoice That sounds perfect. Thanks for the update!!

Congratulations, @livingchoice!

Congratulations! Thanks for the update.