What I mean is....
Reminding yourself that the peak of the contractions only last "this" long and that you can't be in labor forever or that "This will most likely be over in no more than _____ number of contractions". Similarly, maybe you reminded yourself of the effects of an epidural or the risks of such....
Just wondering what you told yourself to get yourself through....bc this is how my mind works.
Re: What did you tell yourself during labor to get through it naturally?
This is what I repeated to myself, over and over when I was in labor:
"One contraction at a time."
"Women have been doing this since the beginning of time. My body was made to do this."
"One contraction closer to finding out if we have a boy or girl!" (obviously, this only applies to you if you're Team Green).
I gave birth at a freestanding birth center, so I didn't have the option of worrying about the temptation of an epidural, because it wasn't available to me. When I was in transition I started to cry and said "I can't do this, I can't do this" my midwives and my husband were quick to remind me that yes I COULD do this, I was so close to meeting our baby, etc. For me, having other people remind me that I would make it through the pain really did help.
To add... my doula and DH kept saying you ARE doing it...
While I knew all the medical reasons to go med-free in my head - what I think really got me through the intense transition period when I got very weepy (which itself is normal) is this... knowing if I asked for the epidural, it would take a bunch more contractions to get it in place - and since I could only even try to think about one at a time - 6 or more down the line was unfathomable - so I just needed to forget all that and do it one at a time - somehow that's what worked for me. My doula and DH were amazing and I don't think I could have done it without them.
First comes love, next comes marriage, then comes...
You do it because you have to. There is no choice. What helped me is that my midwife never even put the option on the table of any meds. It was just get through this one. My labor was so fast that I didn't have any down time to process or think.
Also, being prepared and knowing the risks helped, but I wasn't thinking about that in the moment. However, I'm so glad I made it through because my recovery has been a breeze and I know that's from not having any drugs.
Just make sure you have a very supportive team with you--I had my husband, mom and midwife plus 2 hospital nurses that were incredibly supportive of my birth plans and providing a lot of support and encouragement during the labor.
I wish I had some positive things going through my mind but my body was riding this crazy roller coaster and my mind was just trying to keep up, ha! I think a strength I had was to not vocalize what my mind was screaming. Toward the end all I could think was "get the vacuum, get the knife, I don't care just GET THIS KID OUT!!" but when the contraction was over I could rationalize a bit and tell myself to hold on. Right before DD's head was out I told my husband that I couldn't do this anymore, to which he sweetly and gently replied, "you have to babe. You're doing so good, you're almost done." Somehow that got through and I was able to bury my face into the bed and DD was out two pushes later.
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Am loving reading what you ladies have to say; I am excited and hopeful that this time round I will be able to have a med-free birth, and all this is great advice!
I didn't really do any of those things. Thinking about it being almost over (in general or each individual contraction) wasn't something that I was able to conceive, though my mom kept saying those things to me. But at one point, my husband came over and asked me very gently and calmly if I had changed my mind and if I wanted to go to the hospital and get meds (I had a home birth), and in that moment, I considered exactly what that would consist of. Getting into the car, and being confined in the seat unable to move during the contractions, getting to the hospital and being admitted, being hooked up to an IV or hep lock and having fetal monitoring (none of which I wanted, but I didn't have a birth plan written out because I felt like it was tempting fate- the midwives knew my wishes as we had discussed them in detail), the needle needing to be put in my spine in order to deliver the epidural, the risks of it slowing down labor resulting in me needing pitocin, the fact that my water had broken 24 hours earlier and they would most likely want to intervene even more because of that, the fact that when it came time to push I'd have to be coached instead of doing it on my own because of the epidural, and the high likelihood that I'd end up with a c-section after all that. Having that moment to seriously consider my options really gave me some extra motivation to get through it, so I'm honestly glad that he asked and presented me with the option because making that decision in the moment, not just before I had experienced it, really made a difference for me. I know that this is counter intuitive, and a lot of people say that in order to avoid the meds you have to just proceed like they don't even exist, which I did throughout my pregnancy, but having that presented to me in labor made me even more resolved to stick to the plan, and even though it didn't feel like it much at the time, looking back, I can see that it definitely gave me that extra bit of motivation that I really needed.
With DS1 I thought "if my mother could give birth to me, I can give birth to anything." My mom is very petite and I was 9lbs 10oz and a med-free VBAC.
With DS2 I focused on my doula telling me that as soon as I had the baby it would all be over. I felt huge leaps in progress whenever I would actively relax my body and focus on my desire for him to be born. Accepting labor is really important to the process, accept that it's happening and don't let your mind get in the way of your body.
BFP #2 03/08/11 EDD 11/16/11 DD Born on 11/04/11
BFP #3 08/29/12 EDD 05/06/13 M/C on 08/30/12
BFP #4 11/01/12 EDD 07/09/2013 M/C on 12/28/12
BFP #5 04/30/13 EDD 01/03/14 DS Born on 01/02/14
BFP #6 01/11/15 EDD 09/22/15 M/C 03/09/15
I consider myself 'lucky' that I had relatively short, but extremely intense labors. From water breaking to birth, each of my births were about 6 hours long. However, that was nearly 6 hours in each case of contractions one on top of the other (literally as one would start to go down on the monitor, a new one would begin), so no 30 sec even to rest in between for most of those hours...
However, because of the intensity, every time I was checked (every hour pretty much) I had really progressed. It was the progression that really gave me the oomph to continue. I just kept calculating in my head - well if in x hours, I already dilated x centimeters, then I only have x time left!
Not sure this would work for everyone, but it was some sort of perfect logic that kept me going! lol
Kind of this. There was only one time I consciously thought about pain meds even being available, and that was between contractions. Other than that, I just never thought about it.
For me, each contraction wasn't so much something that was happening to me, as much as it was something that I was challenged to climb. If that makes any sense. I had to mentally "get on top of" each wave of pressure. Sometimes it felt very literal. I had images in my head of running uphill until I reached the summit, or of being on a surfboard and getting my body up as the wave came toward me.
A lot of it was that I didn't have a whole lot of conscious thought. It was something that really overcame me, that I just surrendered to. I felt like I was on hallucinogens for much of it, to be honest.
Personally, I go to a place where any and all rationalizations go out the window. So thinking about the possible side effects of an epidural, etc. mean nothing to me.
Letting my body take over helped me the most. I could tell when the contraction was peaking, so I would stay super-focused on breathing slow, or rocking on the birth ball or whatever (during transition, I had to be on all fours and pretty much roared through them. Not pretty! But it worked). Once it peaked, I could take some breaths and relax from the focused relaxation, ha ha ha.
I did prenatal yoga during my first pregnancy, and really learning how to control my breathing (and vocalize) was the biggest help during labor.
And like overture said, I would visualize riding a wave when a contraction would hit. Definitely getting into a groove of being able to feel my uterus tense up, etc. V v similar to being stoned, IMO!
DS2 - Oct 2010 (my VBAC baby!)