“Due” Time

It’s important to know that a due date means a whole lot of nothing. Although 40 weeks is the standard full term, anywhere from 38 to 42 weeks is ideally where you should expect baby.

A more accurate guess-timate of when you’ll meet your little should be the due MONTH, the four weeks surrounding your due date, with it being right smack in the middle. Both of my babies came after their due dates. My oldest was born at exactly 42 weeks. My youngest was born at 41+1.

Feeling the Pressure

However, doctors and often friends and family start getting antsy once you hit your due date. They start making you feel rushed and begin using the “I” word. You know the one, INDUCTION.

I was terrified of an induction. From reading and studying about all of this birth stuff I knew an induction could start a cascade of interventions leading up to a c section.

Many reports from women who have went through an induction have also said that it makes labor worse. Which makes sense because pitocin, the drug most commonly used in these inductions, blocks feel good hormones like oxytocin.

Oxytocin is the love hormone and responsible for making labor manageable and helping it to progress quicker.

So, blocking these hormones can cause labor to be worse which makes you more likely to get an epidural, which can stall out labor which can lead to more labor progressing drugs which can cause the baby to go into distress which can lead to an emergency c section.

I’m not trying to scare anyone. I had an epidural with my son and everything went fine. And after experiencing natural child birth with my daughter, I 100% understand getting the epidural, haha.

For the record, though, after experiencing both, natural is the way for me and if I had any more children, that’s the way I’d do it again.

Natural Inductions

We’ve all heard the castor oil horror stories. So just like everyone else, it was a last resort for me with both of my kids.

Once I hit about 38-39 weeks, I started throwing everything but the castor oil at the wall to see what would stick. With my son, I was walking roughly 4 miles every day trying to get him out but nothing was working.

Since I knew by the time my daughter came along that I was prone to going over, I started throwing things at it about a month before my due date.

Not because I thought they would work and induce me, but because I hoped that if I went ahead and started trying to prepare my body to release her, HOPEFULLY she wouldn’t be quite AS overdue as her brother was.

Let’s take a look at some of the things I tried with both of my kids:

• Pineapple
• Walking (I even ran a few times, not cause I wanted to but because I had a toddler to chase the 2nd time around)
• Meditation (hypnobabies and others)
• Dancing
• Walking up and down stairs (both normally and sideways)
• Pressure points
• Sex
• Squats
• Clary Sage essential oil (diffusing, topically, internally, bathing in it)
• Nipple stimulation
• Spicy foods
• Labor cookies (My wonderful sister baked me)
• Bouncing on my birthing ball

There were also things I was doing that aren’t induction methods but are great body prep methods like dates and red raspberry leaf tea.

I even did a membrane sweep with my daughter (not my son) and it didn’t work.

Natural induction methods I didn’t try:

• Acupuncture (because we don’t have things like that in the boondocks)
• Spinning babies (because I thought that was just for breech babies)
• Black and blue cohosh (hadn’t heard of it at the time)

The Last Resort

Castor oil is everyone’s last resort. We’ve all heard the horror stories and none of us want to experience that. But I was running out of options. With my son, my doctor had given me an expiration date. If I hadn’t gone into labor on my own by my 42 week appointment, he was scheduling my induction. Non optional.

My appointment was on Monday. Sunday, I took the castor oil around 11am.

• 1-2 TBS castor oil
• 4oz Orange juice

It doesn’t mix so put it in a closed container and shake vigorously, open and chug. It’s really not that bad.

Nothing happened.

So around 4-6pm I took another dose. And still, nothing happened.

At 9:30pm we went to bed and only after about 5-10 minutes of lying down, I started to feel this faint something. Almost like it was in the background of my abdomen. I tried to ignore it and go to sleep but it wasn’t happening so after about an hour of lying there I got up and went in the living room and watched The Fast and The Furious.

Sure enough, contractions increased in both intensity and duration. I woke my husband up excitedly and we went to the hospital just to be sent back home. This was around midnight.

By my appointment at 9:30am, I had been up all night with intense contractions and was exhausted and ready to get this on with. Upon an ultrasound at the doctor’s office, they noticed my water had broken. Something I hadn’t noticed. They sent us back to the hospital and around 8:30pm my son was born.

The castor oil had worked like a charm and hadn’t produced a single bad outcome.

Take 2

With my daughter, I had a different doctor. She was more understanding and willing to work with me on not wanting to be induced but had me coming in the office twice a week for a non stress test.

I also had PUPPPs. Which, if you don’t know what that is, it’s an itchy layer of hives that covered my entire body. I’m talking, it was on the palms of my hands and everything. An absolute level of hell.

At 41 weeks, my doctor gave me the ok to try castor oil. I took it at around 4-5pm and it did nothing. I took another dose around midnight and went to bed. I woke up at 7am on the dot with contractions and she was born at 11:48am that day. We almost didn’t make it to the hospital!

Some people are afraid of castor oil for another reason. They say it makes the baby pass meconium. Grant it, both of mine did. But it’s unclear if it’s due to the castor oil or the fact that most babies who are induced with castor oil are “overdue”, which makes them more prone to it anyway.

Always talk to your doctor and remember not to take too much!

Good luck mama!

Best Vibes Always, S.S.Blake