Reply to Did you have a natural birth and then an epidural birth?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I had epidurals for my first and third, and unmedicated for my second.  The first was SO long that it wasn't that much better than the unmedicated one, which was relatively fast and painful AF.

The third was an elective induction and pretty easy.  After pitocin doing nothing, I got an epidural, the midwife broke my water, and I delivered less than two hours later.  Pushed for maybe 15 minutes?  It was really great.  With both epidurals, I could feel enough to shift positions somewhat, and when to push.  I have a girlfriend who also did unmedicated and then had an epidural, and she loved it.  I'm glad I had the experience of delivering unmedicated, and that would have been my choice with the third, but I had painful complications for the last six weeks of pregnancy, and I was kind of done with pain.

Be careful with saying childbirth with an epidural doesn't "look like childbirth"--there are many ways to birth children, epidural or no, C-section or no.  The romanticizing of unmedicated childbirth has really got to stop.[/quote]

Thanks. Sounds like a vote "for".

By look like birth i just meant look like MY births, whatsoever. [/quote]

It's definitely a vote for if you're feeling nervous about doing unmedicated again.  You've done it twice, you feel nervous, why not give yourself the gift of feeling more relaxed?  I also agree with another PP who said that the epidural makes for more effective pushing because she wasn't "frantic" with pain--I felt exactly the same way.  Like, oh, this can be easy and calm?  Sweet.  (Discounting my first again because I'd been laboring so long--that sucks in a different way than the pain of unmedicated.)[/quote]

I think I'm also afraid of the epidural. I would like the gift of more relaxed! I just hear stories about epidurals gone wrong, causing various side effects and so forth. I don't want to introduce something that isn't calm at all when at least I know I can do this the way I have before, I have some confidence. [/quote]

Most of the time, there aren't side effects or problems with epidurals.  Most of the time, they work great.  I was scared of the epidural the first time, too, and it was NBD and such a gift.  I had catheters with no complications (and I've been hospitalized with urosepsis, so I know UTIs).  I don't know.  Maybe it's worth talking through your epidural fears with a provider you trust?  The odds are high that things will be fine whichever way you choose, and also high that if you get an epidural, it will work as it's supposed to.[/quote]

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