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Natural Birth
babyalex124
member
STM/FT Natural - need encouragement!
babyalex124
member
So I've been experience some moderate pain and discomfort the past week (I'm 33w6d), and it has been getting me a little uneasy about the pains of true labor. I had overlapping contractions with my first, and I remember them being so bad that I WANTED to pass out so I didn't have to feel them any more. I did have an epidural.
This time I do NOT want an epi, I have hired a doula, read up on natural births in a hospital, but I am getting nervous about my will power while in excruciating pain. I hate that I am questioning my capabilities.
Any words of wisdom? Advice? I know that these nerves are extremely counterproductive.
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Re: STM/FT Natural - need encouragement!
You can do it!
I read tons of natural birth stories, watched tons of natural birth videos and talked to women who had natural births. The Ina May Gude to Childbirth stories are great.
Also, at one point during labor I felt like I was surrounded by a bunch of my female ancestors-grandmas, great grandmas and so on. It was super trippy, i felt like they were all standing around me helping me through it.
You can do it!!
I had double peak contractions. I zoned out to the point that DH thought I was sleeping through transition. I kept picturing a scene in my head (for some reason sheep on a hillside in New Zealand) and every time the pain got really bad, my vision would be like a TV screen going completely bright red and I would have to reimagine the sheep image.
It helps to know why you are having the pain, don't let fear feed the pain since you know what it is doing. When you have a tummy pain for some other reason, it can be more painful just from not knowing where the pain is coming from, kwim?
I asked for the epi 3 times (I had a pain-med free hospital birth). I had warned DH ahead of time that if he told me to wait 20 minutes and they would get it, that I would probably be able to fight through those 20 minutes and realize each time that I survived it. This method worked beautifully for us. Understand your personality and your triggers and that will help.
My birth instructor had told us that each time we threw up from pain or shook from the pain, that we were hitting some sort of transition point - losing the plug, dialiating substatially, or water breaking. So even though you feel the worst at those moments, there's a reason for it.
Also, the most important thing I reminded myself was that I can do anything for a day. It's just one day - you can handle it.
For some reason, I really latched on to the phrase "pain with a purpose" and I would just chant it to myself over and over and over again either out loud or in my head. It really helped me to remember not to fight it, just to ride it out, and that I wasn't injured, dying, etc.
It is only temporary, and I PROMISE you, the pain stops like a miracle the second that baby comes out.
IVF # 1 ~ Antagonist ~ ER 1/27/11~ ET 1/30/11 ~ + HPT 7dp3dt
DD born med-free on 10/24/11
I know it's hard not to compare your first labor to your second, but they might be completely different. So try not to let your brain go back to the first one. That was then, this is now, different day, different baby! My second labor was much quicker and pushing, if you could even call it that was a breeze. A lot of STMs report the same thing, so you already have that going for you.
You are already doing all the right things you have educated yourself and have a good support team in place. Women have been doing this for thousands of years. I know you can do it mama!