When I became pregnant with our fifth baby, I decided I wanted to really and truly give birth without medication. I had given birth 4 times already and 3 of those 4 times, I had an epidural. This was fine and all and I have no issues with anyone who wants one and I did great with them, but I am in a phase where I think I would like to move to either giving birth and being able to go home a few hours later or having a home birth. I do not enjoy the stays in the hospital. I miss my family at home and I am just more comfortable at home. I have terrible sleeps (if I even sleep at all) in the hospital and I personally find it counterproductive to start off life with a newborn being even more sleep deprived than you already would be with a newborn. Trying to play catch up on your sleep when you have a newborn and other children at home is almost impossible! So, this is one of the reasons I have turned to giving birth without medication.
Resources I Used to Prepare
I did purchase 2 books to help me learn about giving birth unmedicated, birthing techniques, breathing techniques, etc. The first book is Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. This book is great because the first half of the book is filled with positive, unmedicated birth stories. The second half of the book gets into the details about giving birth unmedicated and knowing exactly what your body is built to do! It helped me to get into a great mindset when it came to giving birth, teaching me what I needed to know or needed to find out in regards to my hospital’s policies and digging deeper into figuring out exactly what I wanted for my birth.
The second book I purchased is Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method. This book was a great start to learning about specifics when it comes to getting through labour and delivering your baby. They keep the details quite short within this book because they want you to purchase the Hypnobirthing Classes. I did not purchase these though. I did not feel like spending $500 on the classes. So, I read the book and practiced what the book taught me and then wrote down the concepts they talked about to look up on the internet and YouTube because I figured someone out there was going to explain the specifics and details when it came to Hypnobirthing. I was able to find many videos explaining certain breathing techniques talked about with the Hypnobirthing book and a lot of the techniques from the book are also spoken about on a YouTube channel created by Bridget Teyler.
Bridget Teyler has a lot of amazing content surrounding labour. She is a doula and a Lamaze childbirth educator and shares a lot of information on her YouTube channel. She also has a free mini birth class where she covers 5 essential techniques to prepare for labour and birth. She does offer a full birth class which you pay for, but I did not use that course. She has a ton of birth affirmations on her channel, visualization guides, meditation guides, etc., all geared towards helping you go through labour. She has videos on breathing techniques, conquering the anxieties surrounds labour, birth positions, and more! Check out her vast array of playlists on her channel because they are so helpful!
I also found a birth class that was filmed from a hospital from the United States, but it still gave me the experience I was looking for in taking a birth class. They say it is outdated and it is from 4 years ago, but I still found it beneficial! Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, Class 4, and Class 5 are all available from TMC Healthcare. They cover all aspects of a hospital birth and what the typical options are for women in a hospital.
I have 2 playlists that I use all the time to help me prepare for birth which are all of the birth vlogs I could find on YouTube for unmedicated births and a playlist for meditations and affirmations for Hypnobirthing. The other big aspect of giving birth unmedicated is your breathing techniques to ensure your body stays in a calm and relaxed state versus a tense state and your breathing can be the difference between those two states. The other is visualization to help your body relax and do what it needs to do.
The last resources I had been looking at were the Spinning Babies website and doing the Miles Circuit website. After a little bit of research, I learned that I should have been doing the Miles Circuit for weeks before my due date so I did not do that. Then because baby had been head down and that was the only position I knew, I did not use any of the Spinning Babies techniques because I was not sure how else the baby was positioned besides head down. So, these would have helped with position if I had more knowledge about baby’s position and prepared myself more with the timing of these techniques.
Reflecting on Birth
Ugh!! So I prepared and prepared but did I prepare a birth plan? No! Was I prepared for my water to break? No! I fully anticipated that my labour would start by having contractions first and then progressing from there. Why did I think this? I have no idea but that’s just how I thought it would go. Did I think the nursing staff would stay in my room the entire time I was in labour? No! I definitely thought this was just a Covid thing from when Jordanna was born, but after some thought it also happened the time before that too. Yet, for some reason I thought they would just leave me alone I guess. Why would they leave you alone though?! They want to make sure they’re available to help you with whatever you need and monitor you for safety and health reasons too. Perhaps this was something I could have put into a birth plan, the fact that I wanted to be left alone for the most part, but you know, you actually have to create a birth plan or communicate with people for them to know what you want….LOL! I also definitely love chatting with the nursing staff there, but I also like my privacy.
I think I was just thrown off course with my water breaking since for some reason I just did not think that was going to be a thing for me this time. I did not bring headphones to listen to birth affirmations during labour because my contractions didn’t really start. I honestly thought we would get checked and since things weren’t progressing quickly, that we would just head back home and labour there until things progressed. Since I didn’t anticipate my water breaking, I only had regular pads and if you’ve ever had your water break, then you know it just constantly gushes out and will soak through pads so that also mentally messed with my plans I had in my head. I have really learned a lot after giving birth 5 times now though. Essentially, do not have a plan Kelsey! I really just need to go into the whole birthing situation with game planning every scenario possible and then just roll with that non-plan. Perhaps, if there is a next time, that I will just go with the flow and figure it out as I go? However, this is completely opposite of my personality so who knows!
I can also make as many excuses as I want to but a few things remain a fact: labour and birth are f*****g hard! I was not prepared/committed and my want to give birth naturally wasn’t good or strong enough. I have done research as you can see above and you really need to be able to prepare mentally for birth and be 100% committed to no medication. Physically preparing, and watching birth blogs is not enough. Reading birthing books is not enough. You need to practice meditation and deep relaxation constantly. I mean not only is it good for your health, but practicing these techniques in stressful situations is the only way that I can see to actually prepare you for giving birth without medication. I also feel like the fact that I know how easy labour and birth is with an epidural, it is always in the back of my mind like: “Hey! There’s an easier and painless way for you to do this!”
If I knew my epidural would fail then I definitely wouldn’t have gotten it. I think it worked for about half an hour which was long enough for my body to relax and rapidly dilate from like 4cm to 10 cm. If you go into birth thinking, “well if this situation comes up then I’m giving up” then you might as well just not try honestly because the first time it gets hard, you will want to quit. Yes, there was something inside me that was telling me to get this baby out NOW and I’m not sure what his respiratory would have been at birth had I had a long labour. It took the nurses a few minutes to get him breathing and pinking up and they were about to take him over to the cart to start working on him when he started to breathe. I knew the fastest way for me to dilate was consistent contraction and since I was not contracting well on my own that I would need Pitocin to help me. I didn’t want to deal with that pain again and had already decided that if I needed Pitocin, that I would get an epidural.
I do have to say though, I am actually glad, in a way, that my epidural did fail. I wanted to give birth without medication and honestly am not quite sure how long the epidural worked for if at all. I had to breathe through each contraction, even after getting my epidural. I honestly think God was like: “Hey! You wanted to give birth without this medication so here you go!” because the last 15 minutes before pushing and the entire 7 minutes of pushing, I felt everything! And the whole hospital knew I felt everything! I think I was just so genuinely surprised that I could feel the pain since I was supposed to have this epidural that was supposed to work, that I was in shock! But, as I said, looking back on it now, I am actually quite happy that it did happen that way. I say this a lot: everything happens for a reason! So, I think I got the epidural to relax my body and not deal with the Pitocin contractions, and my body quickly dilated and then Jonah came out quickly, all to make sure he was okay since he was not very responsive when he was born. The other thing I learned though with Pitocin was that I can manage it on the lower levels, but once it hits about 12 or above (like with my other 3 inductions) that is when the painful, disgusting contractions come into play.
Honestly, Josh had the right mindset in all of this! Just get the baby out safely! I think, if and when we have another baby, that will just be my mindset. I do plan to start meditation and practice deep relaxation techniques because I think it will help my stress levels and overall health which will help in labour and delivery. I’m also not saying anything regarding not trying to give birth the way that you want. You just need to prepare yourself for an intense journey and be fully committed. Not half committed, not three-quarters committed, but fully committed and you’re not backing down. I also think you need to plan for every possible scenario when it comes to going into labour and giving birth: what happens if your water breaks? What happens if you start off with contractions? Do you want to labour at home or in the hospital? What happens if you have to be induced or have a C-section? Obviously unless there’s a medical emergency, then Josh’s mindset is the best: “get the baby out safely” That’s going to be my labour and delivery mantra from now on too! I have also heard other Mom’s say that if you cop out near the end and get an epidural, then you should have saved yourself the time and pain and gotten it earlier and while that may be a mindset they have, I definitely don’t agree! Push yourself if you want to. Go past that point of uncomfortable and do something you didn’t think you could do. I think that is a win, even if you get an epidural in the end, the point was pushing past your former limits and discovering you can do something for longer than you thought.
So did I succeed in my goal in having a baby without medication? No not technically. I did go through the process of having an epidural which was such a terrible experience this time that I may think twice about having another one. It worked for about half an hour I would say. So, in a way, yes I did give birth without medication! Perhaps next time my mindset will be completely different again, but I definitely think God had a hand in this knowing I wanted to give birth without medication and then my epidural quit when I was giving birth! Maybe it was the win I needed to do it again next time but with Josh’s mindset of being open to whatever and just getting the baby out safely! I also think that next time, I could work with the hospital in asking for Pitocin but letting the low doses kickstart my own body’s contractions instead of ramping up the Pitocin to a high level and quickly and that is IF I need Pitocin due to induction requirements to get the baby out safely.
Also, I definitely binge watched Limitless with Chris Hemsworth while in the hospital and it is such an amazing series! You should 100% watch it! I plan on implementing some or all of these tips and concepts into my life! I also feel like by doing that, someone could definitely prepare themselves for labour and delivery/stressful situations and be able to cope!
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