The Imperfect Community

[tigg&teagansmom]

Now, I am a full advocate of "give me drugs". DS was textbook. We were scheduled for an induction, but I went into labor the night before. When I arrived for my appointment, my room was ready. They broke my water, gave me my epidural, and the show was on the road. The only snag was they turned my drugs off a little early so I could "feel" to push. They had to turn them back up. LOL. I loved my drug man!!!

Now, dd, totally different story. My water "sprung a leak". I went in to have it checked and they decided to keep me until dd was born. It was a week early and I wasn't ready, at all!! They told me we could just wait and let nature take it's course or they could expedite matters. With visions of days in the hospital waiting for "nature" I told them to do what they could to get the deal done. They placed a tiny little pill on my cervix to soften it and were going to start pitocin the following day. Well, that was at 7:30 pm. I went into immediate, full blown labor and they didn't have time to call the drug man! DD was born at 10:37 pm with me begging for all it was worth for drugs. By the time they figured out I was in labor, it was too late to even put in an IV or give me a Tylenol!! I had dd as natural as it comes (fighting it every step of the way). That was the single worst experience of my life.

Here is the funny part though: with ds and my epidural, recovery was slow, tedious, and very painful. With dd I could have gotten up from the birthing bed and gone to the mall! I never even took a tylenol after I got home with her, much less anything else! I've always heard that recovery was better with natural, and though I didn't believe it, they were right!

I had my tubes tied last Tues, so we won't be worrying about what to do with the next one. But I will say, it would have been a very hard decision! The pain of birth was bad, but the ease afterward was great! It almost outweighs not having the pain of childbirth, but a good week or so of trying to get back to just feeling like crap, nevermind normal. Hard choices. LOL.

Anyway, those are my experiences. I can't vote for either way because both had their ups and downs. I will also say though, that it was much easier to deliver dd because I could feel what I needed to do.

[Sewingsiren]

Well T&TM,
I should think that an Unplanned natural birth is considerably more trying than a planned one. I'm glad you managed to see the good points in both.
I have had three med-free births, the first two at free standing birthing centers and the last at home. The drug free instant recovery was probably the main selling point for me.

[DietCokeHead]

Here is the funny part though: with ds and my epidural, recovery was slow, tedious, and very painful. With dd I could have gotten up from the birthing bed and gone to the mall! I never even took a tylenol after I got home with her, much less anything else! I've always heard that recovery was better with natural, and though I didn't believe it, they were right!

I had an epi with both and was up and walking around a couple hours later. I think the first birth is always the hardest recovery though, I was shopping at Kohls (for fat clothes) the next day after I had #2. I think it has little to do with the drugs or no drugs, actually.

[tigg&teagansmom]

LOL, you are probably right.......the fact that I didn't plan it probably contributed to the trauma. Of course, 3 hrs isn't much time to build a tolerance to what is going on, either. I admire you for being able to do it 3 times, and to have a baby at home would just be too scary for me! LOL

DCH, you have a good point about my recovery with ds being more because he was my first rather than having much to do with the epidural.

Ah well, either way I have 2 great kids and don't have to worry about doing it anymore!

BTW, Congratulations DCH. What's your due date?