Having A Baby

After giving birth twice, I'd like to offer a bit of advice on one of the choices moms-to-be are faced with when it comes time to actually have the baby.  I mean when you're in labor.

Do not be brave.  All that whole malarkey about "natural" childbirth?  Yeah, I was going to go that route with my son, then gave up after 12 hours of labor and got the epidural.  Truly a gift!  I couldn't feel a thing from my chest down, and after that, hardly any pain.  The relief was enormous!

When it came time to have my daughter, I'd told the doctor on my last visit before I went into labor that I wanted the epidural.  He notated it on my chart, and said it wouldn't be a problem.  Yeah, right!

I started having labor pains at about 10:00 a.m., and went to the hospital.  After being examined, it was determined that my daughter was turned face down instead of up, therefore she had to turn before she could be born.  So they sent me home, with instructions to drink a glass of wine (why, I do not know to this day), and have my husband massage my lower back so that she'd turn.  Since I hadn't eaten because you're not supposed to do that when you're in labor, I was starving, so we stopped on the way home for dinner, me having contractions throughout the meal, which I had a glass of wine with, as per instructions.

Once home, we followed the rest of the instructions re:  the massage.  And did that ever work!  I immediately began having very strong contractions, and could hardly walk.  I called the Doctor on call (not my regular doctor), and she argued that if I could talk through the contractions, more than likely I still wasn't ready, even though the contractions were very close together.

"Lady," I told her, "I can talk through anything.  I'm going to the hospital to have this baby.  Whether you show up or not makes no difference to me," and I hung up.

I was lying in the back seat of the car as my husband drove, convinced that he was going to have to deliver the baby, especially after my water broke on the way.  We finally got to the hospital after what seemed like forever (we didn't live all that close to it, either), went into emergency.

The girl at the emergency room desk asked, "You're not going to have that baby here, are you?" to which I replied, "I can't guarantee anything at this point."

They had someone come down from labor and delivery to examine me, and determined that yes, I was ready to deliver, so they put me on a gurney and began wheeling me up to the maternity ward, telling me not to push!  Somehow, my body didn't want to cooperate with that order, and pushed anyway a couple of times on the way up.

Once in the delivery room, I asked if I could have my epidural.

"Oh, honey," the nurse said, "you're way too far gone for an epidural!"

"Excuse me?"  I asked.  "Are you insane?"

She assured me she wasn't, and from then on, I yelled and screamed and threatened my husband with bodily harm, until finally, my daughter was born at 12:55 a.m. and the pain was over, thank goodness!  Right after she was delivered by the resident there, the doctor on call walked in, telling me how "good" I'd done.

"How do you know?" I asked, still annoyed with her.  "You weren't even here!" and the resident smirked.

I have since had great respect for women who give birth without drugs.  They say that you forget that birthing pain once it's over.  Bull-loney!  The only thing positive I can say about it is that the recovery time is easier without the epidural, but that's it.

So I've done both, and my advice, whether it matters to anyone or not?  Get the epidural.  It's worth it.  Really.