My three biggest fears going into labor (I didn't include this in the birth story, so here goes) were:
a) pooping during labor (to those of you reading this who don't know.... this is very common.... sorry - I know - gross to think about.... but it is!)
b) puking due to the pain (this is sometimes how I know I'm in TONS of pain - I've done it with each kidney stone)
c) not trusting my body to do what it needed to, therefore giving in to using an epidural, etc.
~I am happy to report that I successfully conquered ALL of those fears~
a) I did not poop. Jimmy even made a comment about it after everything was said and done - maybe when we were recounting the timeline, etc., I can't remember exactly when. Pushing, to me, was great. Once I was aware I needed to push, it was very natural. Don't get me wrong - it hurt - a LOT - but it felt productive, and it felt right. Also, having the mirror was great. I tended to close my eyes while pushing (so I could give it all I had), but they'd have me push 3 times for each contraction. So as I took a deep breath to do the next push, I'd open my eyes and see the progress I had made. Some of the pushes I watched in the mirror so I could see the progress as I was pushing. But no, no poop!
b) At one point I was just barely nauseated - but only for about 1 contraction. No puking.
c) I DID trust my body to do what it was made to do - I was just uninformed when I asked for the epidural (I had no way of knowing I had gone from 4cm to 10cm in less than 3 hours) - but would have waited for them to check me, etc., to make the final decision... I just knew it was a bit of a process to get it to happen, so I wanted to start that process because I knew I could do what I was doing for another 45 minutes or so, but not for hours and hours.
Thanks to girlwonder1 for keeping me honest and reminding me I had mentioned at least one of these fears before.
I just have to say.... it's pretty cool what a woman's body was made to do!
Hehe glad I could help! :-). I think too that if women talk about it more, it won't be so taboo or whatnot. I think it's one of my big fears too.. and I'm not sure I could do the mirror thing. What if you do poop you'd all have to see it! But anyway... yay for conquering all your fears! And where are those pics you promised?? :-)
ReplyDeletegirlwonder1 is Andreea btw. I'm not sure if I ever said :-). I finally got around to changing the name that comes up
ReplyDeletecan't say the same for me....i pooped 4 times! yes 4 times! i was pushing for 3 hours (3 or 4 pushes for each contraction)...so no wonder!
ReplyDeletebut i didn't throw up :)
and i did get the epidural - best thing ever!
@Andreea - hahahaha. I don't think I necessarily realized you were girlwonder1.... though maybe I knew! I totally agree.... I'm so not a person that will sugar-coat things, and I think it would be worse to not know than to talk about it! :-)
ReplyDelete@Dana - wow! 3 hours!?! You kick butt, mama. I'm sure it was still perfect... even with the poop. And Aydan is so darn cute.... so who cares!? :-) Glad you loved your epidural!