am i being naive to think i can have a natural birth?

Hi gracie.....

I had a drug free labour with DD#2. THere wasnt much time for drugs as i arrived at the hossi fully dilated ready to push ( had her in emergency, no time to get me upstairs to maternity ward).
I am gearing up for another drug free labour. A epi has never, ever crossed my mind and i dont think i will ever opt for that. Even during DD#1 labour which was pretty traumatic (retained placenta, post partum haemorraging, didnt get to hold baby either) i had pethidine...i felt crap afterwards.
With DD#2 i felt like i could have walked out of the hospital that afternoon. I looked fresh, i felt great - 30 mins after she was born. Even my DH couldnt believe how content, relaxed i was.......for me....drugs are the last, last option if all else fails (i.e my mind !!!!;))

that sounds awesome mbear...i've pretty much caved in on the pethidine thing and said i'm willing to give that a go..i got talked around. i am standing strong on the epidural thing though and dp is as well. he really wants me to do it without one. it's weird, i guess i just didn't understand the system when i first fell pg iykwim? now i feel pretty confused by it all.

Just see how you go Gracie. You might not need pethedine (and also keep in mind that drugs don't work wonders for everyone, I know people who find pethedine made them feel sick, and I think it can make your baby sleepy?). Just see how you travel. I always thought I might consider gas, but it totally never crossed my mind at the birth!!
Where are you planning to have your baby?

Pethidine is a narcotic which takes an adult a couple of hours to metabolise through our body, but for a baby, it takes over 24 hours, so it is born sleepy, sometimes flat (narcan shot can be given to counteract it) and as a result of a sleepy baby they can have breastfeeding problems due to not attaching well. Some birth units no longer use it. Not nice stuff.

hi Gracie

i agree with everyone who has posted here. I am going to a birthing centre and just recently a girl from TAFE let me borrow her "New Active Birth" book which I am nearly at the end of. Be aware that all the women are naked - not to worry most ladies wear a large tshirt anyway - i asked my midwife.

I am going the natural birth too and going to try to opt to stay home as long as possible too. i know we can do it, our body is designed to have a baby. I do not believe that sitting up in a car so a dr can have easy 'access' to us is good enough. I am due nearly the same time as you and happy to discuss this further with you - if you want.

Gracie - next time you see your ob, ask what the effects are of the pethidine on the baby and how it might affect breastfeeding initiation. Meanwhile, read up a bit about this yourself and compare the answers. You might find you're not satisfied with the ob answer, or the answer will influence you to go without :)
As much as other women say that it's your body and you should do whatever you want, it's pretty important to also think about what is good for the baby. For me, when thinking about the effects of drugs on the baby (they all cross the placenta), it swayed me even further into the 'no intervention' camp unless medically necessary. Because birth is not just about the woman, it's about the mother AND the child. Women's liberation shouldn't erode the rights of the child, and drugs don't seem to be very liberating to me, anyway (JMO).
It really did help me at the time to remember that there are HEAPS of women who birth without drugs and that I could be one of them. I was one of many who had gone before me and my body knew what to do if I could just let it, without interference of drugs.
Sorry to push my barrow, it sounds like the knockers are getting to you! IF, after deliberation and finding out about the side effects of drugs for you AND your baby, you still decide you want drugs, then that's fine - you only need to explain yourself to you and your baby, not me or anyone else :) In the end, you do what you need to do and you tell yourself what you need to.
Naughty ob talking you round to drugs when you've said that your birth plan is to not be offered drugs! I'm 'grrrring' away here...

The way I saw it too, was that I spent all of my pregnancy avoiding any drugs, ie, sinus medications, panadol (unless I was dying) etc, there was no way I was going to let it all come undone for a few hours hard work.

Do your research Gracie, peth and morphine (which they are now using in some hosps) are not a good thing to have crossing over to your baby. Especially if your baby is born pretty soon after you getting it. Bub's will more than likely be very slow to respond.

i knew the pethidine comment would cause a stir!! i guess i was just being a bit cheeky..sorry guys. yeah you're right though mayaness, i did let the knockers get to me a bit. i went in there all confident and assertive after reading the posts on this thread on monday morning, but found myself once again feeling like a naive little schoolgirl when faced with the actual scenerio. i conceded that i would consider using pethedine when in labour cos i guess i just don't know how i'm gonna cope till i'm actually in the situation iykwim? i stood firm on the epidural though and said i'm just not interested. i still plan not to use anything, not even pethidine. they can't make me take anything i don't agree to..

That's true Gracie, but in labour you will not be in a position to state your case or protest. Believe me, you need to be firm before you get there and have someone to speak for you. Otherwise you will give in to pressure, because you won't be in a mental state to think clearly, much less articulate how you are feeling. I know this from experience, soon enough you will know what I mean. I know you can do this drug free with the knowledge you are building up. Trust in yourself and you will be so glad you did (afterwards anyway!!).

That's right Gracie, they can't make you take anything, but you might agree to anything when you're in labour. I know people who've suggested all sorts of crazy things in labour, and even tried to leave and say they'll come back and give birth another day!

You need to really go through this with your birth partner, so they can help you make decisions and remind you why you've made those decisions. Also so they can advocate for you and when staff offer an epidural they can remind the dr's that you're not interested unless it's absolutely mandatory.
A good question to ask would be 'do you think I can cope without it?' Hopefully you'll have an ob honest enough to say 'yeah, it'll relieve your pain, but you're doing fine without it'.
While determined that I didn't want drugs, I was aware that if my birth support partners and midwives said 'you're not coping' (like I had an extraordinarily long labour and I needed to rest), then in the end a healthy baby was what mattered most.

My sister gave birth to my niece drug free a couple of weeks ago, everything went really well!

Who are these people? Why are they trying so hard to talk you into something you don't want?
It's terrific that your partner is in the same frame of mind - he can talk for you if you are too busy concentrating.
BTW - DD 1 - born at Knox no pain relief (and she was a biggie). They gave me gas but didn't tell me how to use it so I was sucking on nothing - so that proves that concentrating on breathing through the pain works. No tear, no stitches.
DS - only had peth as I was talked into it by a stupid midwife that didn't bother telling me bubs was posterior - I got scared when things felt different from the first time. He was born about 20mins later, I didn't need it at all. No tears again.
DD 2 - Perfect waterbirth at Angliss birth centre.

What to wear? I searched for the perfect outfit and ended up wearing a pink, sparkly strapless (stretchy) mini dress with matching pink leg warmers. Yes I did!

Go for it Gracie! :) It's absolutely do-able!

I went in to both of my labours pretty open, depending on the situation I was open to drugs if I felt the need. Both times I really surprised myself and I had nothing, completely drug free! Admittedly they were quite short labours but I tell you I (and this may sound selfish!) was SO proud of myself and my babies for doing what we were made to do. I was (and am!) immensly proud and my DH was incredibly proud too. He saw the pain I went through and was amazed it could all happen drug free. I just took it contraction by contraction, just getting over one, then the other. You'll be amazed what you can do! Best of luck!

thanks for all your confidence in me ladies. dp knows my feelings on it and i trust him to speak up for me. nelle i like your suggestion of saying 'do you think i can cope without it?'. i will definitely be using that one. it's great to hear that so many of you have done it, and i've gone through hard parts of life and gotten through them. bec i love just getting through it contraction by contraction, one at a time...that's the way to do it isn't it?
lulu- i didn't know there was a birth centre at angliss. can you tell me more about it?

Oh Gracie, like Lulu, I had a waterbirth at the Angliss, that's how Riv was born and I'm booked in for the next one too! They're great because you have one less thing to worry about, you know they'll stick with intervention-free birthing ideals. I also trusted them in that, if they did suggest intervention, it was because I needed it, and not cos they were bored and wanted to fiddle about. My midwife saw that I had my dh and my friend who's also a student midwife and just left me to it! She popped in every now and then (probably more than I noticed) and told me I was doing well.
I've heard they can get busy and I heard a couple of weeks before River there were heaps of births all at once and they shuttled a few over to the normal birth suites, but with Birth Centre midwives, but I had the whole place to myself!
Anyway, sorry, off topic and you actually asked Lulu, and I can't speak for her, don't know if her experience was anything like mine.
Where are you planning to have this bub Gracie?

Gracie I highly recommend it. Many independent midwives work there, they have the lowest transfer rate of all birth centres in Melbourne and they know how to work the grey lines ;) Very recommended. Of course, one of the few places you can have a waterbirth too.

Of course it was great - The Waterbirth of Elizabeth Raine is probably in the archives if you want to take a look.
They only thing is - I think it will be too late to book in now. Give them a call and see what they say.

Hi Gracie,

You're not in a minority, in a different kind of birth class you'd be in the majority!
I attended birth classes with the NCT in England. Out of a dozen couples, only one other couple did not have a c/s. The other mother was one of those rare people who sneeze and have a baby - her labour was 4 hours. She was a very fit and very calm person. I was less fit and less calm, and my labour was 24 hours. It was so normal it was boring. I did feel that I was the token wierdo hippie of the group (that was a laugh, given my middle-class super-conservative background) but really it was all a matter of choice. I knew I was a poster girl for Ms Average and felt that if I chose hospital birth I'd HAVE a hospital birth and very likely, step by step, would've had intervention and 'needed' pain relief. I chose home birth and so I had a homebirth and didn't need pharmaceutical pain relief.

So much of what happens around birth is the overlay of cultural context. In a different context, what you are planning would be considered totally normal and routine. The trick is to choose what you know is right for you, from the desire of your heart, and stay your course. Choose on the basis of that, not on the basis of what all the others are doing. I can think of some birth classes (independent of hospitals) where what you are planning is routine, ordinary and unremarkable. I can think of other cultures where the same would be true.

Try to focus on what you WILL be doing to support your birth, support your relaxation, enhance your comfort and manage pain rather than on NOT having pharmaceutical pain relief. Is there anything else you could arrange that might support your goals?