Pft.

My husband was actually something of a help in the first delivery room experience. Whatever brownie points earned, though, were substantially tainted because he would repeatedly lament what a trauma the delivery room experience was -- FOR HIM!!! -- because he was so exhausted afterwards. If there was ever a time I contemplated the 'ol "arsenic in the coffee" trick, it was then.

Epidural, baby!
 

My first was induced and I had some stupid idea about seeing how long I could go without an epidural. After about 8 hours of pitocin and stuck at 3 cm with the cx going off the charts, I finally gave in and got it. Best thing in the world. 40 minutes later and feeling waaaaay better, baby born with a couple pushes.

My second was natural labor, about 6 hours total, got the epi as soon as they said I could. Much more enjoyable. Pretty much talked through it.

The idea of an epi horrified me before I gave birth (okay, giving birth terrified me, too), but it was the.best.

No, but it's pretty high on the list of options for those of us who end up with c-sections.

Mr. Lex, who was somewhat traumatized by c/s #1 (which, to be fair, involved a whole lot of blood on the floor and problems breathing on my part), told me the night before surgery he would prefer not to be in the OR this time. I told him I would prefer not to be there either, but neither of us had a choice in the matter, so wear washable shoes.

Epidural, baby!
 

You say this, yet no accusations of being a Smuggy McSpermMaker from RP? Jeez.

Ah, does the putative dad read this board?

Epidural, baby!
 

The form of this defamatory remark concerns me. I have counsel and I'm not afraid to use him (hi Gatti!).

Flinty McFlint

Epidural, baby!
 

Hey! I thought I was your counsel now. Sexist fuck.

Epidural, baby!
 

You still are. Can't I have many counsel? You have always been my favorite counsel.

I only use Gatti because he's real bitter and mean, and I need that in this instance.

Epidural, baby!
 

I've been meaning to call you about that. Flinty wants us to split representation -- you'll do the "production legal" deals that come up during the course of the shoot, and I'll handle the corporate structuring and larger commercial deals for Flinty Inc. And threaten scumbag infringers, of course.

Upside is that we both accompany Flinty to Prey on a nightly basis. We'll invite Shifter along, and he can be the Turtle to our Jimmy and Eric.

I post exclusively on the Spanky Highlights for Children board for the moment.

Soapbox moment follows:

Our midwife certified nurse practitioners were not stereotypically against drugs per se. They were, however, heavily against the epidural in favor of the injectable Demerol for pain control. The midwife party line is that when American women say "I want an epidural" they're really only saying "I want to control the pain" in the only way they know how (Americans are prone to self-prescription as much as self-diagnosis --- the same women who assiduously avoid caffeine and booze throughout pregnancy say "Epidural!" upon arrival without asking important questions about the effect on the fetus). Some moms are concerned that an epidural blocks a number of body responses that facilitate labor and delivery in addition to blocking pain, prolonging the labor and increasing the likelihood of caesarian delivery. Thus, moms who want to reduce the chances of a caesarian being necessary should (according to this theory) opt for narcotics in lieu of epidural.

The research we were shown indicates epidurals lower mom's blood pressure and reduce blood flow across the placenta, decreasing oxygen delivery to the baby during birth, and that epidural-assisted births are linked to listless newborns with higher instances of post-birth interventions such as antibiotics. Persons with an analytical bent might note that people inclined to get epidurals are probably not going to fight other medical interventions, so that correlation is not necessarily causation, but YMMNV.

If Demerol is administered during a contraction, very little of the narcotic is delivered across the placenta. This was our back-up plan. To date, this generation of Grinches has been delivered without any pharmalogical pain control. To her, at least.

Every woman is different / you should plan to have the birth you've always wanted / blah blah blah.

I had a c-section too, although I knew going in that's how the Brazenette was coming out. I'd pretty much been told, from the early days of my pregnancy, that I had a pretty good chance of bleeding to death if I had her any other way.

I am grateful I couldn't feel a damn thing.

Bah. With my first, I went for the narcotics before the epidural, for all those reasons you mention. Minor pain relief for 20 minutes, got it again, same result. They were useless for me. The epidural allowed my body to relax instead of fighting the labor (me vs. Pitocin was a mean battle). Happily, no issues of slowing labor or anything like that - it allowed me to get control and manage the delivery (yes, both times the nurses told me to go ahead and practice pushing before the doctor got there - I told them I didn't think I would need to, but obliged. They freaked out when it was clear I was going to go ahead and deliver, so they made me stop, which I was able to do under the happy influence of the epi. I also had to stop again mid-delivery with the second due to cord wrapped a couple of times around baby's neck). Both kids full of fire, no listlessness issues. The whole problem with all of this is that you just don't know beforehand how you (and the baby) will react. I am very, very impressed with Mrs. Grinch's med-free birthing abilities!

Grubs!
 

All you want to know, and more!



http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-d...5072100067.gif

Too bad "Ms. Smuggy McGoodEpidural" just doesn't the right ring to it.

Yes, too bad! Yes, yes, I fell in love with the stuff.

Well, count me in the other camp--I had an epidural, but wasn't thrilled with it though I had no complications. Family members who were there to witness the birth loved it because it made me easier to watch (no more moaning and groaning, etc.), but I think ultimately it led to further interventions (pitocin and breaking my waters) and eliminated any connection I might have had with the process. Magnus stubbornly presented with his head turned sideways, and COULD NOT come out until he turned when I vomited after 2.5 hours of pushing. Pitocin-aided contractions jamming his head downwards and the elimination of the amniotic cushion could not possibly have helped. He finally came out with a very weirdly-misshapen head, screaming before he was all the way out, and refused to latch onto the breast for the first week of his life. I can't help but feel a smoother delivery could have led to a different result.

So, for #2 I am doing my best to prepare for an unmedicated and intervention-free delivery (in about 10 days if baby cooperates). I've borrowed my sil's HypnoBirthing materials, and I'll see my acupuncturist for help with pain relief and relaxation. I also recommend reading the chapter on labor and delivery in Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom--I read it for the first time a couple of years ago and wished I had read it and internalized it before Magnus was born.

RP, feel free to PM me if you want more info. I totally understand if you want to wait to see if I am successful in meeting my goals this time around.

tm

I wish you the best of the best with #2. I did want that sort of natural experience, but pit. did me in and I quickly flipped to the other side. Your Magnus story sounds very difficult - did he get pretty okay after that first week. How stressful for you and him. (Oh, don't want to remember the first weeks of nursing - OW)

I will say, though, that (and you may have found this, too) my nurses were like pushers when it came to the epi. Particularly the first time. I had to tell them for hours I didn't want anything, and you just know they were thinking "I told you so" when I finally caved. And frankly, they looked pretty relieved on #2 when I said right away I was planning for it. Self-interested!

Yes, Magnus did eventually figure out that I wasn't trying to kill him when I stuck my nipple in his mouth. Seriously, that's how he reacted. Oy. This one has got to be better.

Nurses didn't push the epi with me, because I'd specifically stated in my birth plan that we knew our options and would ask. But they definitely seemed relieved when I finally did ask. They probably didn't like my moaning (because I was trying to avoid throwing up--rp, that was a big lesson learned: just go ahead and throw up) any more than the grandmas did.

tm

I don't really want a natural labor experience so much as I want to avoid having a c-section for non-emergency reasons -- that is, simply because labor is going too slowly in the doctor's view. It would be upsetting to push for hours and then have to give up and get cut, and I don't want the doctors to do that simply because there's a certain point at which they think it's been long enough, but it's not because the baby is in distress.

So at this point, I hope to avoid being induced, monitored, and given an epidural because I've read that research indicates these all slow labor and make a c-section more likely. I'll probably hire a doula. I think the c-section rate in my region is even higher than the national average, and I think my OB's practice serves lots of women like me -- professionals who've waited until their 30s to have kids, and so are considered higher risk automatically.

I don't really trust doctors. It's not that I think they want to do harm, it's just that I think as a general matter, not just in the OB context, they will always have their preferences and biases about how to proceed, and will want to go one way even when there are other alternatives that are just as safe or effective or would simply be better for the individual patient.

When people hear my wife's done NCB twice, they look at her like she's some sort of closet hippie. Meanwhile, I'm like, "She's wearing pearls and eyeliner, dumbass, think for a second." It's like we put a KPFA bumper sticker on our Hummer. Every previous generation of human beings was produced by NCB, save the last two, and now it's like you're superhuman if you even try it. This is, of course, only true if we believe it's true. OTOH, my wife gets a little charge out of knowing that she's an acknowledged ass-kicker when it comes to birth. It's the only endurance sport she's ever played, and she got the same cache as if she'd run a marathon out of the blue. "Holy shit, you ran a marathon? You?"

Like RP, we weren't/aren't categorically opposed to drugs. We just wanted to see how far we could go before hitting a breaking point. At that point, I would have asked for Demerol without any remorse.

Some people have bad birth experiences. A woman I greatly respect recently told me she would have scheduled a c-section if she'd known she would be in back labor for 42 hours. Well, duh. In a previous era she might have died, and the world would be poorer for it.

My main point is that "drug-based pain control" and "epidural" should not be used interchangeably. My secondary point is that an entire society that delivers children while having an otherworldly detachment from their nether regions will probably not have the same understanding as their millions of female ancestors that life has a cost.

I don't know about that. I have no kids and I am quite aware that life has a cost. In fact, I'm putting money aside for the early retirement pipe-dream, while you plan savings for someone else's college precisely because life has a cost.

Don't fight the hypo.

I have had at least 3 kids, that I know of (or acknowledge putative parental liability for) and I didn't take drugs during any of the births. I say suck it up. No offence and npi.

I'm with you on it. Solidarity! Word.

I never would have gotten to this part of the post had ncs not quoted you. Basically, then, you are saying that no male ever has or every will have any real understanding that life has a cost?

Also, you sound very like that whole "women have pain in childbirth and cramps during their periods because of Eve doing that thing with the apple" camp, which is creepy as fuck.

Huh. I just thought he sounded like a "this worked for us and therefore I look down upon those who don't make the same choices I do (or, I guess, technically, my wife does)" sort of person. But I'm always the last to catch biblical subtext. Damn my liberal hippy parents for my godless upbringing!

I think he sounds like both. Arrogant and misogynistic -- a winning combo.

No, Atticus, the fact that you "admire" your wife for bearing the pain does not erase the essential crappiness of the quoted sentiment.

WTF? You've already admitted you didn't read my post. Why don't you try that before you decide what my character flaws are?

I'll try again to sum up, since you clearly lack the attention span:
(1) I love my wife and admire that she had the guts to finish what she set out to do.
(2) In a hypothetical utopian world in which birth is painless, antiseptic and entirely convenient FOR EVERYONE EVERYWHERE, there will be no one left to remind us how difficult, messy and costly it has been for 99.9999% percent of history. Or how difficult it remains for the 95% of the people on this planet who don't have any birth plans other than to survive the process if possible.

Note for you fans of logic out there: assuming (2) means I want birth to remain difficult, messy and costly in terms of human life regardless of choice is a part of the syllogism I didn't provide. That comes entirely from Fringey.

I wish this exchange had occurred on the FB so I could give a appropriately smarmy and snarky reply. Alas, this is the parents board, and I must set a good example.

Duh, I reread the entire thing when I realized I'd missed the gem of regretfulness that we just don't understand that life has a cost. Of course, even lacking epidurals, we are sadly no longer as aware that people can easily die in childbirth if hospitals are not available, that children come out all fucked up if you don't get enough folic acid, and so on. And we don't really have that deep understanding of osteoporosis and being a bent-over little old lady because babies sucked all the calcium out of your bones.

And our teeth don't fall out because of the dental care. And we can heat and cool our homes at will. And we get to go in cars and planes and trains, and so just don't really appreciate how onerous it was for people who settled the frontier.

Perhaps you were just making a really stupid statement, and it's not about Eve.

Whatever. I've never had reason to doubt your intelligence or short-term memory before, and out of respect for you I will pretend you never posted this.

On induction
 

RP, et al:

The newest study say that epis and, particularly, early epis do not slow labor at all, so now they may be given earlier instead of waiting until after 4-5cm or so. I'm not sure I buy this study, but whatever, some of you might be interested - I think it was on cnn.com not too long ago.

I have no idea if I could have delivered #1 the old-fashioned way. I came in for my induction at almost 4cm and in 12 hours, I went to 6cm and then back down to 4 and baby show no signs of budging. We went for a c-s since the OB thought the baby was probably too big. Maybe he wasn't - maybe it was that I wasn't physically ready to deliver at 38.5w, but by the time he was 40w+, he would have been over 11lb*, so I suppose the induction, though it ultimately failed, was the best option under the circumstances. If the induction had failed for no reason than the fact that I wasn't ready to deliver, I would have been pretty pissed at having unnecessary surgery. Anyone looking at an induction for convenience really should take a look at the c/s rates due to failed induction before agreeing to it.

C/s have a lower rate of infant mortality, but a higher rate of mommy-mortality than vag. deliveries. OBs usually offer the infant stats, not the mommy stats if questioned. No OB will get sued for an unnecessary c/s resulting in a healthy baby, so why not push them (especially repeats), especially since the fees are higher?

p.s. to TMDiva - #1 never learned to latch on, little slacker, and despite the help of consultants, etc., I pumped for a year. Not fun. Did not want a repeat of that. Turns out #2 is a freakin' Hoover who I can't get off the boob. I wish you a little Hoover this time around!

*No, no gestational diabetes, just lucky like that.

You still don't get it. Let me try it this way: In a hypothetical utopia in which everyone buys their babies at thrift stores, males and females alike will think differently about the costs of bringing new life into the world than we presently do. They will think that cost is somewhat lower than a neighboring hypothetical utopia in which 85% of them buy babies at thrift stores and 15% deliver vaginally, and of that group .05% die. This is true whether or not those deliveries are painless.

Continue to note, if you will, that I make this observation, which I continue to believe is true, without believing that it is a good thing that people suffer and die. I only note it has an effect on their dispositions and appreciation of life that they do. You, meanwhile, are beating the crap out of a straw man that we presently lack an understanding of the cost of life because of the wide availability of epidurals today (an argument I did not make). I join you in thinking such an argument would be, if made, ludicrous. Now join me in acknowledging that no one here has yet made it.

Maybe I'm being dense here. Wouldn't be the first time, certainly. But in the context of what you were talking about (we chose natural; wouldn't do an epideral; would have considered demerol, but thankfully no need) and in light of the posts of others here (horrible, long labor before deciding to do an epideral), it is very hard to read your post that fringey and I quoted as not saying something akin to "other people may choose to get epiderals, but I don't believe in doing that and it seems to somewhow be making our society less cognizant of the miracle that is childbirth and the long-standing risks associated with it". I'm not sure really how different that is from my original interpretation of your comment. I mean really. You are now changing your point to "if everyone had painfree childbirth, we wouldn't appreciate historically how difficult it has been"? Because even the posters here who went the epideral route seem to have some first-hand understanding beyond the level of yours about the difficulty of childbirth.

So what was your point? And why were you making it in the midst of an epideral discussion if that was not the point of it?

I think his point was, if god had intended for epidurals to be used women would be born with little intake valves at the base of their spine, no?

As usual, you're not helping.

I appreciate your putting it that way. However, at the end of the day this is just another useless discussion of "You posted X and that evinces you harbor objectionable belief Y because I think X can't exist without Y (mostly because all the people I've personally met who believe X also believe Y)." Some form of this argument is at the root of every stupid flamewar this place has to offer. It's surreal reading a written debate in which smart people tell you that you must believe Y, something you don't believe, because they can construct an argument about why you should, and then destroy Y because it is dead wrong.

My point was that some component of our appreciation for new life comes from the suffering and sacrifice necessary to accomplish it. No one has taken on this assertion head-on. It's a superficial and quite mean interpretation of that argument to say that I favor suffering, especially suffering of women in particular, which is what you and Fringey imputed to me. But all I said was that if all suffering were eliminated from all childbirth, our view of children would change in unexpected ways --- some of them good, perhaps. I don't think anyone who's experienced childbirth, epidural nor not, would describe the experience in the utopian way I did to make my point about this connection.

Within two posts it turned into:

• Me: If X, then Z.
  
  NCS & Fringey: If .80X, then .80Z. And by our observation, Z is not 80%. Your correlation is therefore false.
  
  Me: I agree Z is not = 80%. There is no unit correlation. My point what that when X is completely obtained, Z will be completely obtained, not incrementally.
  
  Fringey: You are an asshole because two things cannot be correlated unless they are correlated in proportions, and you must secretly believe that non-mothers and mothers who have epidurals have no concept of the pain of childbirth. Most mothers have epidurals; by your argument most women should have no concept of the value of life.
  
  Me: Not so. This has never been about whether women with epidurals, childless women, men, nuns, whatever have this knowledge. The question is whether they, or anyone for that matter, will have it when we have no more stories of difficult childbirths.
  
  [And so on.]

I would have thought that I would have been taken at face value when I said I do not oppose epidurals. I was born with one, as were some of my favorite people. Shit, I suppose we would have done one if it had gotten bad enough. It's strange to me that my statement that this was our order of preference this time around because of our personal risk-balancing would be taken necessarily as judgmental of others when I went so far to say I was not. If we simply disbelieve people's descriptions of their views as posted, the point of this board breaks down.

Pssst. Chicks can't do math.

Ever helpful,

Flinty