Epidurals

[bobtheenchantedone]

As long as this is turning into anecdote time, my mother has always been very thankful for epidurals. She's had children with and without and she would never go back to without. She has had trouble with at least one epidural, mainly in that the one administering it was a jerk, but she still can't imagine having a child without one.

I am a wimp, so I have always insisted that I would have all the drugs they would give me. I'm still pretty sure I will go the epidural route when that bridge needs to be crossed, but this thread has caused me to think a little.

[Dragon Lady]

Oooh! I'll elaborate on my hinted-at anecdote, then.

My mom had 4 kids naturally. (This was back before epidurals were common at all. The norm was natural. Also, my parents were rather poor, so they never opted for the added expense.) She was pregnant with her 5th when she got into a car accident 5 weeks before her due date. It killed the baby. But she still had to birth the baby. (This, btw, is my biggest fear. To go through all the work of labor all while knowing you wouldn't get a live baby at the end.) 3 days after the car wreck she was in the hospital laboring. The doctor told my mom, "You have been through so much emotional pain these last three days. I cannot make myself go through even more physical pain." And he gave her an epidural. She hated it. Absolutely hated it. Specifically the pushing part. The doctor would tell her when to push, but she couldn't feel anything. Even that she was pushing. She felt like she was just pulling faces while her doctor and husband cheered her on. Which made her feel like a fool. So she'd bust up laughing halfway through and the doctor would yell, "Nono! Don't laugh! Keep pushing! You can laugh when this contraction is done!" Looking back she said that she would have rather gone through the pain. I was born naturally 2 years later.

I had no idea about this story until I had already decided to go natural and told my mom and asked her opinion. I was surprised that she had such a story and hadn't shared it yet! But now I'm glad that I made that decision without knowing that, and then had that story to back me up.

[krebscout]

That is a tragic story. I can't even imagine the grief.

I don't know much about how epidurals have changed since your mother had one and I had one, but I keep wondering if a) they've become less strong, or get administered in more gradated doses, b) if I'm just one of those people that feels more than they're intended to (I needed to be redosed several times, and I had an interesting experience with still feeling all the goings-on on the left side of my body during my c-section), or c) I'm just a wimp. Because I was still in massive amounts of pain, and I could feel lots of things going on while I was pushing - I could feel exactly where her head was pushing against my bones, and it sucked.

Has anybody had any recent experience with medicated vs. unmedicated sensation? That is, the sensation of giving birth minus the pain part of it?

[Imogen]

My friend Christin has. She had her first with an epidural and second without. She has miserable pregnancies, so the second was supposed to be the last baby EVER, but she said feeling her come out felt so amazing that she now wants more. She hated doing the epidural because she felt like she missed out on something really important now that she's had one unmedicated.

[TheAnswerIs42]

Ack! I went on vacation, and came back to find a huge thread on one of my favorite topics. I think the only thing I want to add (because Dragon Lady and I are pretty much on the same page) was that I think with pregnancy and childbirth I always make sure I stress that each person is SOOO different. I do natural childbirth because I am more afraid of needles than pain (and, by the way, my last two cavities I had filled without being numbed for the same reason), but that is just me and my irrational idiocy. Once I started down the path of "how can I do this without a needle", I decided that I believed in a lot of the research that camp presents. The reason I have successfully done labor without an epidural more than once is because my labors are short. I know women who are in labor for days, who are in severe pain at all times, etc, etc. I tell them that natural childbirth is not for them. My labor takes six hours once I get the pitocin fully in my system, so I go for it. Just like how I miraculously never get sick with pregnancy, but know people that puke every day until the baby is born. Every birth is different - why should the answer be the same for everyone? I hope no one has ever thought I was looking down at them for not making the same choice as me. But there are always a lot of people that enjoy making other people feel like idiots, no matter what the topic.