Why I Opted to Try No Epidural This Time Around . . .

Disclaimer: I actually really loved  Kateri's labor and delivery. Everything about it was so exciting and it was one of the most thrilling, fulfilling and joyful days of my life.  Nothing can possibly compare to the excitement and extreme happiness of seeing Pat holding my beautiful little girl for the first time. I got an epidural almost as soon as possible after I got to the hospital and had no serious complications or problems related to it. I truly have nothing against medicated births, and may opt for that in the future (who knows?).

                                        Kateri and I right after she was born!

SO, why would I want to do anything different with baby numero dos?

Actually, even the possibility of trying something different was not on my radar until the end of pregnancy. I was really inspired by Mary who was due one month before me and opted to prepare for a non-medicated delivery.

 My aunt told her, "The thing is, you just never know if the epidural will take. So you might as well prepare for a non-medicated delivery, and then if at any point you need it, just go for the epidural! But that way you will be prepared regardless."

After hearing Mary's story (non-medicated delivery! yay!), and thinking about the whole thing for a few days, then weeks, I decided to (finally!) go to the library. I love the library, BUT I hadn't been there in so long that even my library card had expired. Yes, it had been forever! That is what having just one kiddo will do to you. Or me, maybe it's just me. As luck would have it, I ran in to my aunt at the library. She even held Kateri so I could pick out some books! Awesome. And she was so positive and sure that I could do it. It was inspiring!

So I grabbed a pile of books, renewed my library card, and headed out. There was so little time to read because of all the things on my pre-baby to do list. And Kateri. And it was SO HARD to get into the books. So I ordered some other books that had high reviews on Amazon and devoured those. And any and all birth stories I could find on various blog link-ups and web sites. And thought and researched more, and then thought some more.

Finally, after a lot of reading, and encouragement from a lot of people (Anne, Jess, Mary, Danielle, Aunt Betty~ I'm looking at YOU!) I decided that YES! I will at least try non-medicated. Here's why:

1. With Kateri, my contractions started less then two minutes apart. BAM! We left for the hospital well within an hour of the first contraction, and by the time we got to the hospital I was 4 to 5 cm dilated! Things were moving. The whole labor was only 12 hours, BUT my guess is it would have gone quicker had I not gotten the epidural. So, for a quicker delivery.

2. A quicker delivery would be quite nice for obvious reasons (hello pain), but ALSO, because I am group B strep positive, I get the wonderful IV antibiotics during labor. I got two doses (which is what is considered ideal) with Kateri's delivery. Afterwards, I got a huge infection related to those antibiotics. It took over six weeks before it was eradicated! And it really affected breastfeeding. So, shorter deliver, hopefully only ONE dose of antibiotics, to decrease the likelihood of another roaring infection.

3. So with Kateri, I actually felt like I was ready to push for four hours. FOUR. HOURS. That is not an exaggeration. I kept calling in the nurse and saying~ I'm ready!! She encouraged me to just "Relax and let the baby do the work." Well, this definitely did make pushing easier. Finally, after four hours of really and truly thinking I was ready, two pushes and she was here. Yes. Pretty much less then ten minutes from Dr C walking in the room to seeing that beautiful baby girl for the first time. Now, only two pushes is nothing to complain about, and I have no problems with that. But for months and months afterwards, I had some issues that Dr C was sure were due to the four hours of being ready to push, and not pushing. I definitely wanted to avoid a repeat of ANY of that, if at all possible!

4. No terrible tearing with Kateri, though everything I read and all studies I saw referenced specifically said the risk and severity of tearing is decreased with no epidural. Yes. Please.

5. Curiosity. People have been doing this sans meds for . . . how many years?!! So how will I ever know what it's like unless I try it?

6. I learned an interesting fact from Amy Bookwalter (who is an amazing doula and offers some fantastic classes on labor and delivery, whether you're looking for non-medicated or epidiral). She said, regardless of how long labor lasts, the average time that a woman is actually having contractions is THREE HOURS. Same amount of time that Christ hung on the Cross suffering for my sins. Interesting, right?! I read quite a few blogs where women wrote down a bunch of intentions to pray for during labor, and I was really attracted to that idea. My life is so posh when I think about it (AC, hot and cold water at any moment, a fridge, freezer, washing machines, dishwashers, all these conveniences), it seems like a blessing to have a little suffering to offer up. It also makes labor much less daunting to think of three hours rather than thinking of facing excruciating pain for 19 hours. We get breaks!

7. RECOVERY. So, after doing quite a lot of asking around, some people find that recovery is easier after an epidural and some people find it is easier without one. I realized the only way to know which category I fall in to is to try both! Recovery with Kateri was rough, so rough. I have no doubt that there were a lot of factors that played into that (serious breastfeeding issues, infection, first baby) but I wondered if the epidural may have played any part in that. So I was faced with the decision to try or forever wonder if no epidural would make recovery easier.

So, those are the main reasons I decided to try a non-medicated delivery. As Sebastian's due date approached and then passed, and then day after day went by, I became more and more anxious that induction was looming in our future and, with that, the inevitable (to me) epidural.