This post is not going to put down any woman who choose to get an epidural but I am tired of hearing people putting down other people who choose not to get an epidural. I am going to share a part of my own stories. We all have our own personal reasons why we choose the method we picked at the time of brith. I am a big advocate of trying to have a baby without any medication so this post leans towards not having one, but I am in no way shaming anyone who gets one. This is mostly because of my own personal experience. I may write about each of my birth stories in multiple post. I have had many questions over the years.
I remember being with a group of woman and one of the woman said with a smug tone “It’s not like you get an award for giving birth without medications.” Now this woman had three children and shortly after saying this she began to talk about how each time she had her kids she had some complication before giving birth. I personally witness someone who had three kids and I was in the room for two of the three. It seemed every time they got the epidural something would happen and caused all the nurses to rush in shortly after she received it.The first two times they were able to get her situated and nothing came of it. but she ended up having a c-section for their third child. I am not saying it was the cause of the epidural but at the time it made me pause and wonder if it had something do with it.
I think we are naive if we don’t think there are consequence for everything we take – it could be vaccines, an epidural, over the counter medicine, and even natural remedies. The thing is we often don’t experience the things that could happen when taking *insert* medicine. I read an article when I was pregnant with my first child that I wish I would have saved and printed it out. The woman who wrote the post talked about the side effect of having an epidural but she was not discouraging anyone to not get one, just informing the readers.
I never set out to not have an epidural at least for my first child – I kept an open mind because I had no idea what to expect. I waited so long to have kids because I was SO SCARED of the pain. I have talked to a lot of woman during this time and I really wanted to try to not have one. I read that some women had issues with breastfeeding after having an epidural and not being able to walk right away didn’t seem appealing to me. Then I heard a lot of stories of women who got one but it didn’t work and to me I felt it was pointless to get it just for it to not work. I was also told that typically women who don’t get one usually go faster because they can feel everything and know when to push.
I went into labor with my first child 11:00PM on a Friday and didn’t have him until 7:58PM on Saturday. I was in the hospital from 6AM. I labored all day and I started off strong with no medicine and truth be told by 5:00PM I was starting to regret my choice of not having one. The biggest reason why I ended up not having one was because of a nurse named Erica. She was AMAZING! I truly appreciated her and was so blessed to have her as my nurse – unfortunately she was off her shift before I had my first son but I wouldn’t of made it without her. I learned quickly from being in the room with other people that nurses are trained to support whatever choice you make. When I decided to not have any meds they would tell me why that was a good choice. I was in the room with someone else and I remember the nurses telling her all the reason why it was a good idea for her to have one. Just to clarify this was at the same hospital I had my first two kids and I visited a handful of people at the same hospital.
I fear this blog will end up being super long so I will try to not drag it out but I have had three other babies and all of them were without an epidural. Now my second one is the one that sticks out to me because I often wonder if I would have gotten an epidural if I would have ended up having a c-section. I was moving quickly with this child and I had my first contraction at noon – I was in the hospital at 3:30 and he was out by 5:30ish. Now he would have been out sooner if someone would have listened to me when I told him something wasn’t right. Every time I pushed I could feel him in the same spot because it felt like something was preventing him from moving down. I said something and they wrote me off, but then after another hour of pushing I finally asked “Could there be something physically keeping him from moving along?” The midwife called in the doctor and she said it looked like a part of my cervix was slightly swollen so they decided to give me Benadryl. I never heard of that but I just wanted him out and we were told it would take 15 minutes for it to kick in. That was false because he was out in 8 minutes. I didn’t even feel him crown that is how quickly it worked. He came out with a couple of pushes.
Then with my 3rd child I was at a random hospital in another state – that is a story for another day but what stuck out to me was the one woman who was in charge of getting the epidural looked at me as if I was foolish to thing I would not have an epidural. She told me she had to have in place just “in case”. He came pretty quickly and everyone actually left except one person. When I told her he dropped I got on my back and he was out with a few pushes. I had no issues with him the only thing was I was afraid I would prevent him from coming because I was nervous about my two other kids being in the room. Now my last delivery was last year and there isn’t much to say about the epidural because they knew this was my fourth child and they seemed to be like “Ok, you clearly know what you are doing.”
Now I am holding on to hope that I can have these twins naturally and that like with all my other kids they will come on their own. I know they plan to induce me at a certain point but I really don’t want to because that is a whole other thing that I personally feel strongly about and have been able to avoid. I will put my children health first but if I can have these two with no meds then that is my first choice.
I get it I don’t have a plaque on my wall for each of my deliveries but what I do have is the pride I feel for doing it. I felt like super woman after I had my first son and I could do anything afterward. I continue to feel that way after each of my babies. I am an advocate of having a natural childbirth but for me I can’t even entertain the idea of having my babies at home. It scares me to death and I feel better once I’m at the hospital. Then again none of my kids have broken my water so I have always had to have help with this step of delivery. I also encourage women to try because I think we often give up before we even try. We are a lot of stronger than we think we are and because we are told we don’t have to feel pain we choose not to but it’s only for a short time. Yes I get it some woman have labored for hours even days and as I said already I’m not putting anyone down for choosing to get an epidural. It was worth every moment for me because I was able to feel my first born having a hard time getting passing the pelvis bone, I was able to feel something wasn’t right with my second, and I knew when it was time because I felt my third dropped.
Did you chose to get an epidural? Why or why not?
Have you had one but decided not to have one later? Why or why not?
Did you not have one but got one for another pregnancy? Why or why not?
Who influenced your decisions?
Thriving in Chaos 
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