Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

If so, what are you doing to prepare?
I happen to mention to my Aunt (a nurse) that I was considering it without taking birthing classes and she thinks I'm nuts.

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

I go back and forth on the topic. Ideally, i'd want a drug free birth but the fact that I have no idea how much pain to expect scares me.

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

If I don't have to have another c/s I won't be getting an epidural.

DD was frank breech and the c/s was inevitable. I had her at 11am and didn't get to see her til 5pm b/c my temp and blood pressure dropped from the anesthetics. I really don't want to repeat that.

I'm only 5 weeks, so I have done nothing to prepare, lol. I'm going to talk to my Dr about it at my apt at the end of the month.

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

planning, yes. will it happen? only God knows!

do you have any experience with birthing at all that you're considering not taking birthing classes? i planned on having a drug free birth the first time around too, but i made sure i was as prepared as i could be, taking classes, reading up, hiring a doula. i'm confused as to how you plan on going about birthing...

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

I am planning a drug free birth, praying all goes as planned. DH and I are taking Bradley Method classes, they came highly recommended by a couple women I know that took them. It's a 7 week series- we go on Thursdays for 2 hours so it is a lot but its so worth it. I have already learned so much and am so glad that we are taking them! I dont think I would be able to do it without some sort of guidance. Hospitals really push drugs and I feel like I am really prepared on when to turn to medical intervention. If you are interested I can give you my instructors info- she is in Dix Hills. It takes us 40 mins to get there from my house but I am so glad I picked her, she is so down to earth and very realistic about the entire process.

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

I would really like to be able to go drug free but I have no idea if I'll be able to follow through with that because I normally don't tolerate pain that well I begin with. I think I'm going to just wait see how I do and I'll try to tough it out for as long a I can. I don't know what to do to prepare for the pain though. I'm only 10 weeks so once I get closer I'm sure I'll do some research and maybe even take a class. But I honestly can't imagine any technique that would help with the pain of child birth. I have a feeling that when it comes down to it any breathing or focusing techniques that I may learn will go right out the window and I'll be begging for the epidural, but I really hope not!

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

I am going to try to go without drugs this time, only because I had an epi with DS and it stopped working, made me nauseous and gave me really bad heartburn. It only helped with the contractions for about 2 hours before it began wearing off. They kept trying to give me more and put me on my side but nothing help. I have not taken any classes, but I pretty much had a "drug-free" experience with my last. DH and I did rent all the Laugh and Learn videos from the library, I guess they helped a little, but when you are in that moment, I think everything kind of goes out the window. You just do what you have to to get the baby out!

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

Yes, I am going drug-free again of all goes as planned. I had a very intense, painful birth with DS (10 hours of hard back labor and 5 hours of pushing), so I'm assuming this time around can't be much worse I did a 4 hour Bradley session and as soon as I started labor it all went right out the window I was in intense labor within 2 hours of contractions starting so I couldn't focus on anything, certainly not Bradley info, but that's not usually the norm. I would definitely do a class, just so you know what to expect. In that way I found it very helpful. I had a midwife and she was great with suggestions to help with the pain (position, hot water bottle for DH to rub on my lower back, taking a hot shower).

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

Re: Anyone planning on a drug free birth?

I went drug-free for DD and plan to go drug-free again (although I've got a long time until that happens). I read a book on Bradley that my friend loaned me and I took a class on L&D that my hospital offered. It was a very thorough class and to me knowledge was power. One of the best things we learned was that the pain is constructive. So much of our lives when we are in pain, it is because something is "wrong" but with childbirth, it's painful but because your body is doing the right thing. We also learned that the memories of the pain fade with time. I totally remember being in the throes of horrible horrible pain delivering DD and consciously thinking "but in a few weeks or months, the memory of this pain will fade, but knowing I did this won't!"

It was totally true.

You can read my birth story on here in my profile. I am so so proud of it.

I was only in labor for about 6.5 hours so I was very lucky. The onset was pretty fast and I went to the hospital about 3 hours in. When I got there, I was 5 cm dilated already and contractions were 6 minutes apart if I remember correctly. Two hours later I was already at 9 cm. Pushing was really hard because she got stuck, but it was all "doable" -- DH helped SO MUCH as did the L&D nurse. They were amazing.

Trusting your body and the people around you helped so much. A lot of it is luck, too. You have to be so flexible. In our class, we went over a zillion different "options" as if we had choices... then they made is confront the "what if" of whether one by one every choice was overturned. What were our biggest priorities? What were we ok with not having happen? What was our worst-case scenario? Ok, not plan for that happening, how would we make the best of it?

For me, the scariest "option" was the potential for a c-section. But if it had to happen for my health or my baby's, we would've handled it. Still, I'm glad I went in with a mindset towards no drugs. Yes, it hurt. (I think I say that about 50 times in my birth story lol.) But I'm still proud and feel very lucky with how everything went. I really hope I'm as lucky with #2.