TSara & eKayak: Knocked Up!!! :^D

[panyasan]

Well, the nurse comes with the health insurance.. and i don't think doctors do not mind giving medicines. They just have the attitude that everybody does it the natural way without painkillers. Home deliveries - babies born at home, not at the hospitals - are also very promoted. To have your own choice is probably the best, in hospital or not, with or without painkillers. I am sure enjoying the results of all my labour

[Escriba]

But I figure, would anyone get a "natural" bone-setting operation... no painkillers? Would anyone go for "natural" heart surgery? "Natural" knee replacement?

"Yeah Doc, I really want to FEEL it...you know? The MIRACLE of my appendectomy."

I've spilled out my hot cocoa, but it's worth it

[Asso]

Let it be that I'm a doctor.
The greatest experience of my whole life has been to stay with my wife during her labor.
I saw our daughter before my wife.

[Bether6074]

I can remember trying not to fight the pain, which didn't work too well as I recall. I didn't have any epidurals, but did have a few shots of something that didn't do much good. Probably doesn't matter much, I wouldn't think, as long as the babe is healthy and all is well. I do remember apologizing to my hubby and the nurses afterward, so I imagine I wasn't much fun to be around.

[enterprikayak]

Yeah, I got to the hospital, and I could hear a couple of women moaning loudly in other rooms, and I thought, "Yeesh, what noisy ladies."

And then an hour later I was showing them all how to yell loudest.

Breathing didn't help so much. I liked yelling much better.

I drank 4 litres of raspberry leaf tea earlier that day...it's supposed to speed labour. Well, I dilated in about an hour from nothing to 10 cm. Yowch. Maybe next time, I won't drink quite so much tea.

[panyasan]

I said to my husband "This is the only time I am aloud to yell, so I am going to scream..". Then the doctor told me yelling put too much pressure on the eyes, so I would end up all red eyed. Nonsense, but anyway no yelling...
btw love your picture eKayak...

[Alelou]

Ha! That doctor had figured out how a way to shut up some of his patients.

I don't think I did any yelling. I was too busy trying to fit the breathing in around the puking.

I do remember thinking all that calming crap they tell you to bring to the hospital like music and a poster to focus on was a pathetic joke. Like at that point in your life you can actually focus on anything else than what your own body is up to!

[TSara]

I'm not big on using drugs.

Hell.....I'll suffer through headaches!

I hope to go through this labor drugfree.....my midwife has told me she has a few non drug pain management options she likes to use.....so I plan on going that route 1st.

In any case.....here is peanut.

I am about 8 weeks.

[panyasan]

T'sara, what a great picture! 8 weeks! That means, yet four weeks and then the-I-am-feeling-much-better-months begins (at least for most women).

[Alelou]

Well, I don't know anybody who ever PLANS to use the painkiller (the first time, anyway), but hey, good luck with that.

[Distracted]

I did. I had plans from the moment I went into labor. For the first one, I sent hubby (who was a 1st year OB resident at the time) off to find the anesthesiologist as soon as we got to the hospital. When the guy finally got there I was about 5 cm dilated and REALLY tired of "focusing on my breathing". He said, "Are you sure you want this epidural? You're doing so well!" My husband said I gave him a look that would've killed him if I'd had any ammo.

He put the epidural in without another word. Damned male anesthesiologist. Let HIM come try and poop out a watermelon! "You're doing so well!" Huh!!!

[Alelou]

But you had privileged information -- you'd watched all those other women try to poop out a watermelon, which is in fact exactly how my 10th grade biology teacher, a former nurse, described it to us. I think she might have used a slightly more colorful term for "poop out," though. She was a good old Florida gal herself.

By the way I think I got a term wrong earlier. The woman you hire to help is a doula, not a duma.

[justTripn]

I'm not big on using drugs.

Hell.....I'll suffer through headaches!

I hope to go through this labor drugfree.....my midwife has told me she has a few non drug pain management options she likes to use.....so I plan on going that route 1st.

In any case.....here is peanut.

I am about 8 weeks.

Don't let them scare you. It's not as bad as all that. Kind of like a menstrual cramp times ten. Not like being stabbed with a knife or something. And you WILL forget all the pain once the baby arrives. As soon as the baby was born and I reached for him, I said, "Poor little baby, you've had a hard day." and My mom goes, "HE's had a hard day?!!!" But that is your mentality. Everything is wonderful. I may have mentioned before there was a certain Sting song playing in the background, with the refrain "And we walked in fields of gold" . . . everytime I hear it, it takes me right back to that moment. Well we made a memory and I go the same midwife route if I had to do it over again. But whatever leads to a good outcome. That's the important thing.

[Alelou]

You had twins with a midwife? Were you in the hospital?

[justTripn]

No, I had the first one, the oldest of three, with the midwife. I had the second two, the twins in the hospital, but still no painkilllers, though. With the twins, painkillers would have been totally unneccessary because it all happened so fast.