EPO and Red Raspberry Leaf tea

[marquess78]

did anyone use both and did it help? i started mine yesterday (vaginal and oral EPO and about 3 cups of rrl tea a day) and i hope that it gets me somewhere. i am nervous about all this swelling and i am trying to NOT have to be sectioned again. OB is trying to be very hands off and i appreciate it. hes not worried too much about the swelling since i am so active and not having huge BP issues. its mildly elevated but thats all.

last tues i was not dilated at all but super soft. my OB calls my cervix 'super cervix' because it NEVER changes. its not funny anymore. its like my body is too stupid to do what needs to be done. i will likely get checked again this cominf tuesday. they will do another growth check on the babies this time and prob measure my cervix that way. personally i dont agree with u/s cervix measurements. they are more damaging to my brain than the actual physical check. because someone is always saying how long my cervix is and 'wow your 'x' weeks and nothings happening, amazing'. yeah thanks.

anyways, just fishing for advice and looking for hope. im going back to patching the holes in my walls now.

[ShwarmaQueen]

Well I'm not sure if it helped but I did go into labor at 40 wks and push out a 9+lb baby, so...it probably didn't hurt.

[buckeyedoc]

Yep, I used both. I suspect it helped a little, because my cervix was really, really soft from at least 39 weeks on, and that didn't happen in my first two pregnancies, when I was totally closed (even with my vaginal delivery with my first, my cervix was 1 cm really far into active labor).

With my VBAC, I ended up having 4 days of early labor with water breaking on the third day when I was 2 cm and 50% effaced, which eventually led to a tiny dose of pitocin 24 hours later and then 16 hours of active labor until delivery, so it wasn't a short labor by any means, but it was totally fine, and I pushed out a transverse, asynclitic 8 lb. 9 oz. baby at 41+1. The ripe cervix probably helped my body respond to that little dose of pitocin.

[justKate]

Used both (epo orally and vag) 36 wks forward and I'm not convinced that it did anything, but it certainly didn't hurt. First baby, 3 cm by 48 wks, but still had a 30+ hr. labor (got to 10 cm around 14 hrs. but had section for other reasons).

But I don't believe it will hurt!

[MNHall]

I did both with my first VBAC and I'm doing both again.

I started the EPO I believe at 34 weeks with my DD. But I started it just once a day, orally. I had planned to move to twice a day, or maybe even vaginally the closer my due date got, but I had her at 37w4d, so I never did anything but one orally.

I'm NOT a tea drinker, so I was lucky to get one cup of the tea, daily. That was good enough for me! LOL!

For my son, I was induced, ended in c/s, at 39w2d. I was never more than "maybe a 1" on my own, but I did "induce well", as far as dilation. For my daughter I was 2cm at 36 weeks and 2.5 to 3cm and 70% at 37 weeks.

This time, I again started drinking just my one cup of tea daily at 34 weeks. And again started just one EPO orally at 34 weeks. My OB said he likes to start earlier than most, at 34 weeks, and even vaginally. But, I started orally at 34 weeks and now at 37 weeks, I'll start vaginally. We'll see if it does anything this time!