Giving Birth

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Ah. Okay, I understand. I did not before.

I was unaware that women were competitive and snarky with each other about birthing. I find the whole idea about being mean about how someone chooses to deliver rather ridiculous. I guess I should not be surprised though. I was heavily criticized by some people for not breastfeeding after six months (I could not deal with teething) and then tore to shreds by some people because I used disposable diapers for my second daughter. I mean, I get it that people behave this way but it does still surprise me when they do. Sorry if you had negative experiences with people being rude to you because of your own choices.

I have four kids and had the first one in the hospital where I worked in NICU and L&D and then had the last three at home with a midwife. I had demerol and an epidural with my first and nothing at all with the last three. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have about it.

I was worried about the pain, not the hospital or the people because I worked there and was comfortable with the hospital and the staff. The pain was surprising, and it always is. However I would not suggest getting demerol before your epidural because you fall asleep between contractions and wake up in the middle of them and can't get a handle on them. I took the classes and all and planned on getting an epidural but you still have to handle the pain up until you can get the epi. The breathing and focus stuff did not work for me. I followed my own breathing patterns and squeezed my husbands hand and would repeatedly pound it with my fist during contractions. When I got the epidural I was fine and dandy. Pushing was scary but that was just pressure, I was expecting much worse. I hated the internal monitor and being in one position on the bed.

For the home births the pain is really bad. But it passes and by the time you just can't handle it anymore it's almost over and too late and you have to push. I felt great after those but after the hospital births it took weeks to recover, but then again it was my first.

Talk to your doctor about your decisions for pain meds, and go visit the L&D area and talk to some of the nurses about their protocol. Then sit down and make a birth plan with your preferences and give your doctor a copy and bring a copy to the hospital with you. However, you will be checked internally at intervals, a monitor will be put on you, you will have an IV and your vitals will be checked. Some nurses rub on you during contractions and some don't. If you don't like it, just tell them that, not everybody does.

Remember though, your birth plan may go out the window if need be if there is any concern about you or the baby. That doesn't mean disaster at all, I've seen it tons of times working there. Just talk to them and find out everything you can about it and go from there. I'll tell you what I can if you have any specific questions.

ETA: I didn't choose homebirth and no pain meds because it was "better" I chose it because I had insurance when I had my first and had a good doctor and a good hospital. I had pregnancy medicaid with the rest and I tried their residents at the clinic I was supposed to go to and wasn't comfortable with them at all. I found a midwife who would come catch my baby at home who had more experience and training in birth than the resident that would have been doing the delivery at the hospital. I was also about three minutes from a hospital where we lived then and the midwife had emergency equipment, so I took my chances that I wouldn't have a sudden abruption or heart attack. Even then I could have been from my bed to the OR in less than ten minutes. I would have gladly taken pain meds and not thought bad about it at all if I had access to them at home.

I heard the term unmedicated vaginal birth, is that a better term?

It seems everyone has forgotten this post was just a nervous young woman asking advice. Why did we let it degenerate into this pissing match about natural birth versus drugs? Don't we get enough of this from the rest of the world?

Someone recommended the Ina May Gaskin book and I would echo that. I found it VERY calming before going into pregnancy. Although what I did find a little bit freaky about the book is that I knew a couple of the women who were photographed giving birth and I knew the kids they were birthing! Friends of my mother. But that won't be an issue for most people.

I wanted a no-pain meds birth, but in the end, I had an epidural and a c-section. Turns out I developed an ovarian cyst during my pregnancy and the pain of that was much more intense than the labour pains and also it never went away, whereas labour pains are intermittent for much of labour - maybe they get more constant toward the end, but I had an epi by then.

I had my son in the UK and I found the experience pretty horrible. I particularly found the post-partum ward a hell on earth, too many people, too much noise and hot! I couldn't sleep and I was disabled by the abdominal surgery. Even as horrible as my birth experience was, I'd endure it again. But I'd never want to ever be in the post-partum ward and I'd pretty much do anything to avoid it. So my other point of advice is to think beyond arrival of baby and see what you can do about your after-experience. When you're in labour you don't think about much else, but afterwards stuff can bother you. I don't even have 'sensory issues' and I'm NT, but I found the recovery ward completely overwhelming and absolutely awful. Hopefully you won't have that experience.

I second this. My first child was born in Ireland, and sharing a ward with 5 other women after giving birth was not fun. Neither was the shared bathroom, where there was blood smeared all over the walls and floor. It wasn't the other women's faults, of course, as everyone bleeds A LOT after giving birth. The hospital, however, was understaffed and didn't get to cleaning things up as fast as they should have. Disgusting.
My second child was born in the States, where a private room and bathroom (and even cable tv and a fridge!) are pretty standard. My time there was like staying at a nice hotel.

I was really scared about being touched and fussed over I didn't like strangers touching me at all I had lots of planning about what I was going to say and do I did loads of research on breathing tequniques and stuff but in the end I was pretty late to the hospital and I was in so much pain I didn't really care about the embarrassment and stuff my nurses were useless but it wasn't so bad your brain has chemicals to release for that kind of thing and it's hard to remember the pain afterwards for a lot of people.