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| Baby A in the bassinet as viewed from my hospital bed. |
"You know the drugs go straight to the baby, right? Personally, I couldn't imagine doping my kid up in those first few minutes."
"You'll forget the pain. Just keep pushing through, and you'll have one of the most real and true experiences you'll ever have."
"Women have been doing it forever. You can do it. Just don't give up."
There seems to be a cult-like mentality around the unmedicated birth. (I won't call it the "natural birth" experience, because it insinuates that any medically-assisted birth is unnatural. Trust me; even the fully medically-guided births happen because nature is seizing you by the uterus and making this happen.) Women brag about how they endured the pain, and they and their baby are better for it. They insist that it's the only way to have a memorable and meaningful birth. They romanticize and fetishize the birthing experience, trying to control for every component of the event so that it can be as picturesque as possible.
For others of us, that idea may be entirely impossible to achieve, and it seems crazy to even try.
I had no illusions about my pain tolerance or my ability to get through labor and delivery completely unmedicated. From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I knew I wanted an epidural. My husband was on notice to signal to the doctor to start prepping the epidural the moment we arrived at the hospital. I wanted birth to be as easy as possible, and if there was a way to avoid going through unnecessary pain, then bring on the medical assistance!
Turns out, I didn't have much of a choice.
My little one didn't seem ready to move, even once I hit my due date. He hadn't dropped, and showed no signs of moving toward the exit. The little due was apparently comfortable, and was going to enjoy an extended stay at Chez Mom.
So at my 40 week appointment, my doctor decided that if Baby A didn't come on his own, she was going in after him. We scheduled an induction for the next week, and I was sent home to walk and bounce on my yoga ball as much as possible in the hopes that the movement would shake him loose.
Thankfully, the very next day, Baby A reluctantly agreed to move things along. But it was at his own pace. Around 10pm Wednesday night, I started contractions. Oof. Not fun. They hit pretty regularly every ten to twelve minutes throughout the night, each one lasting between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. Now, if you've never had labor contractions, let me tell you, they aren't easy to sleep through. They feel like intense menstrual cramps, and they are pretty insistent.
So for about eight hours, I was up every few minutes, timing the darn things. By morning, they had closed the gap to every 8 or 9 minutes. I started to get excited. I called my mom and my sister to let them know that things were finally getting started. My husband stayed home from work, and I called my doctor.
My doctor was glad to hear that things were moving, but told me to just stay at home and relax until the contractions started coming every 5 minutes or so.
Okay, I could do that. I was getting closer, after all. Just another few hours, and I could go to the hospital and meet my little man.
Well, the contractions started to get more intense, but it took until about 4 that afternoon before they got down to the required 5 minute intervals. Finally, I thought, we can get this show on the road.
Ha. By the time I got checked into the hospital around 6, my fairly intense, and fairly painfully contractions had gotten to every 4 minutes, but when the doctor checked me, I was only dilated about 3 cm. ... I had been enjoying the pains of labor contractions for over 20 hours, and I had made essentially no progress.
The doctor told me to settle in for the long ride. From that point on I was not going to have any food, and I was confined to the bed until the baby came. My doctor prescribed pitocin to speed things along, and my husband and I settled in. My family dropped in to check on me, and I sent them home, since it looked like we'd be in for several more hours. My husband popped in a movie while the nurses hooked me up to all sorts of monitors to keep an eye on me and the baby, and they kept upping the pitocin in the hopes that something would happen.
The contractions continued increasing in intensity but not frequency. By 10pm, about 24 hours after they had started, I was only dilated to 5 cm. The pains were pretty intense, but completely manageable without pain medication. In fact, despite my earlier vow to demand an epidural upon arrival, I was convinced at this point that I could manage just fine without. Sure, I was uncomfortable (okay, I was in quite a bit of pain), but even dialed up to a whole other level, I was convinced I could do this without the meds. After all, there were predictable points where the pain disappeared and I could breathe. I could do this.
Then the doctor told me the time estimate. If I continued at the rate I was currently at (with pitocin increasing the frequency of contractions and trying to push things along as quickly as possible), we were looking at another 15-20 hours. On top of the 24 hours I'd already been without sleep.
So after 40 something hours of no sleep and near constant pain, I'd have to push? No, thank you.
I got the epidural. That blessed, welcome numbness that allowed me to sleep for four straight hours that night. For four hours I couldn't feel a thing below the waist. Couldn't roll over, couldn't push if I wanted to, couldn't do a thing but rest and relax. It was wonderful. Sure, the insertion of that ridiculously huge needle into my back was easily the most painful part of the process so far, but the relief that followed made it all worth it. With a little uninterrupted sleep, I could do this.
That total, blissful numbness was never repeated. I got several additional doses of the medicine throughout the next 15 hours, but never again was the sensation of giving birth taken away. I could feel my contractions again, though the edge was smoothed over. I certainly felt the need to push at hour 40, and I definitely felt like I was being split in two when I finally pushed my baby boy out, but I made it through the process.
If I hadn't had that epidural, I would have gone nearly three days without sleep, two without food, and in near constant pain. I wouldn't have made it. That epidural made it possible for me to give birth the way I wanted without having to experience a C-section. however, if a cesarean was the only way to deliver my boy safely, I would have done that as well.
My birth experience was as authentic and real as any unmedicated birth. I may have been a little woozy after the fact, but I guarantee I would have been just as out of it after such a prolonged experience without any sleep or food or relief of any kind. My little boy arrived just as safely, if not more so, because I was able to get a few hours of rest in the middle of the marathon madness that was his birth. And at the end of the day, it is my choice. I took my doctor's advice and had a safe and healthy delivery which culminated in the arrival of a perfect baby boy. He was alert with eyes wide open from the first. He didn't even cry until he got his first sponge bath.
So I won't be joining the cult of "natural" birth. I'll stick to the one that works for me and my kid. And whatever kind of experience comes out of that works great for us.
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