I remember the very first time I thought about ‘giving’ birth to a child. I was a 15 year old girl (barely a freshman) sitting in the hallway of my new high school with my friend and her older cousin. She was recounting her friend’s birth story who graduated just last year. My mouth dropped and all I could remember from the story was 2 things: 1. vagina tearing and 2. pooping in room with your doctor, nurses and husband watching. Who knew that happened? Certainly not me. On that day, I made up my mind that drugs was the ONLY way to get through child birth.
Fast forward about twelve years later to 2008. I married my high school sweetheart, and we were pregnant just after two years from saying I DO. At 27 years old, I didn’t do anything without researching books and the internet – some people call it A type personality. I needed to know what was going to happen to my body every step of the way from pregnancy to birth. I started with learning about the women in my family. My mom told me that she had me after 19 hours of labor and an epidural gone wrong made her back hurt more than the contractions. My aunt had her baby girl at home by accident! She didn’t know she was in labor. How was I going to get through child birth? Was drugs still my answer.
As I continued to research and read books, I decided that the best way for me was to try a natural child birth. No, drugs was not my answer now. This was a huge decision for me because I cringe at the thought of any pain. I’m scared of bees because they could sting. I told a few co-workers and friends about my plan, and I knew they didn’t think I would be able to do it. I decided to take Bradley classes because it was the best option for a natural child birth. My husband was very supportive of my decision and we started our 12 week class.
If I didn’t have a high risk pregnancy, I probably would have looked into home birth, birthing centers, midwives, etc. I had my baby at 35 weeks from an induction by pitocin (PIT). I yelled and screamed through the pain. No, drugs was not on my birth plan. After 6 long hours of hard pain by PIT, I was ready to push out my baby girl. My L&D nurse was holding my right hand and my doula was holding my left hand. I could see my husband in the corner of my eye. (He was kicked out the room twice by my nurse because he was getting paler and paler.) At 6:03pm, she was born, and no, I did not ask for drugs. It was not my answer.
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