Pain Relief

What can I say, but I loved it! Giving birth has been the most wonderful experience I have ever had – and ever will. Needless to say my pregnancy wasn’t all rosy and back pain free! I suffered from terrible heart burn, where I couldn’t lie down without being sick. At thirty weeks I suffered from severe lower back pain. My partner was on night shift at his work ten miles away, when a muscle literally popped after I sneezed! Luckily my parents came to my rescue and took me to hospital. I remember the pain being worse than the actual contractions. Forty one weeks later I went into labour. Only being one week late, I couldn’t wait. My bump couldn’t get any bigger. The hospital sent me home after being examined. I was only 2cm. That night my waters broke in my bed. My first response was that I’d actually wet myself, and after the realization that my baby was on its way, I had the urge to push. I spent five more hours pushing, to which I couldn’t stop myself, for the need was too great! I was taken into hospital and the midwife began to pour me a warm bath to ease the contractions, as she examined me. “I don’t think we’ll be needing that bath, your baby is almost here”. I was taken into the labour room straight away and without any pain relief, I gave birth to my beautiful son, Evan who weighed a healthy 7lbs 13 ounces. I was told after wards that I had done all the hard work at home with all the pushing. Thankfully I had gotten to hospital just in time or my son would have been born in the back of my dad’s new car!

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I have an extremely low tolerance to pain, an extremely low tolerance to pain. So when i got pregnant with my first (aged 14months) my parents were curious just on how i would cope through what could be a very low enduring labour. Mum suggested having an epidural, but after reading up on it the thought of it going wrong (another bad habit of mine – thinking too much on things, creating almost forced worries) was just too much for me and i became dead set against the idea.

Towards the end of my pregnancy i started suffering from extremely bad back pain which would have me rolling around in agony for hours crying my little heart out. Thinking that this was probably Braxton Hicks i ignored it and suffered unknowingly to my midwife.

Before i knew it i was in labour and oh my lord was i in agony. The back pain i had suffered from during pregnancy was worse and was only slightly relieved when my Mum rubbed my back which i demanded she did for hours on end, much to her dismay. Being set against an epidural i was offered gas and air, which after using was found to make me go dizzy, unable to focus and vomit. So i pushed with NO pain relief in the slightest for a long 7hours. I was stressed, in sheer agony and unable to relax for even a remote 5 minutes. My son was face to pubes and was resting on my spine funny (hence the bad back) and every time i stopped pushing he was being almost sucked back in. By this time i was begging for an epidural. Anything that would make my back pain go. I have never seen someone move so fast to go get something for me (apparently i was like the exorcist while giving birth)

Soon after the anathesist had arrived and had given me the epidural I couldnt stop telling him just how much I loved him and he kept laughing it off – even though 5minutes or so before i was giving him abuse for taking so long. Suddenly i felt so much better and was able to have a conversation and a giggle with my mum and friend who were present with me which i was so incredibly unable to do previous the epidural. Also, being one of the lucky ones to have an epidural, i could still feel my stomach tightening so i was able to push pain free. My first birthing experience turned into something i was able to enjoy and not scream and shout about. My son was born 2hours later.

So i think people shouldnt rule epidurals totally out, you never know what you’ll be begging for when the time comes. At least if the midwifes know its a possibilty that you may want one they can make sure an anathesist is available at the time so that you arent put through more distress while waiting for him/her to arrive. And this is coming from someone who was scared to have one literally minutes before labour began.

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When you are nearing the end of your pregnancy, you will likely have many aches and pains and you think that each one is the beginning of labor. Some early labor pains are not labor at all, but false labor, which is called Braxton-Hicks contractions. They do start off in the same way as labor pains in that they feel like hard menstrual cramps, but they do not intensify and eventually stop. The early signs of labor vary from one woman to another, but most report that they do have crampy pains very similar to menstrual cramps that do start to get more painful and closer together.

During labor, the muscles of the womb start to contract to push the baby through the birth canal. They start in the upper portion of the uterus causing this part of the uterus to become tight and thicker. Generally, women report the feeling of a dull aching pain in their lower back and say they do not even realize it is the start of labor because they have no pain in their stomach. It is also possible to have aches and pains in your sides or even your thighs. The contractions occur in waves and could be 10 or 15 minutes apart at first, which is why many women dont even realize that this is what they have been waiting for. Even in early labor, if you place your hand on your stomach you will feel that it is really tight and tense.

The contractions occur and then you have a period of relief from the pain. In order to time the period between contractions, you start timing when the contraction stops and stop when another contraction begins. If you are truly in the early stages of labour, this time period will become shorter and shorter. You can also time the duration of the contraction to see how long it lasts. As the space between the contractions decrease, the duration of the contractions increase.

Doctors will tell you that when you find your contractions lasting for one minute and occurring five minutes apart, then it is time for you to call your doctor and to go to the hospital. Your water may or may not have broken and you probably didnt notice that the mucous plug has been released from the cervix. However these are questions that you doctor will ask. Leave yourself plenty of time to get to the hospital, but if you are a new mother you can probably delay this until the contractions become so intense that you find it difficult to breathe through them.

There are stages of labor, just as there are stages of pregnancy. In the early stage, the cervix is just starting to dilate. This first stage can last for many hours until the cervix is completely dilated. First time mothers usually have a longer first stage of labor than they will with subsequent births. The second stage is much shorter and ends with the third stage, which is the birth of the baby.

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It is definitely a choice that only YOU can make, and you should not let others influence your decision. YOU are the one in the pain, and only you know how much pain you can truly handle.

I was truly fearing child birth. Towards the end of my pregnancy, thinking about it would keep me awake at night. I pretty much decided a few months into my pregnancy that I would have an epidural. I have always had a very low pain threshold and thought that by the time labour rolled around, I was going to be a screaming, swearing mess!

When my waters broke and 9 hours later I still hadn’t started having contractions, I was admitted to the hospital and put on a drip to induce the labour. When they first checked how dilated I was, I was already 3cm which wasn’t too bad considering I hadn’t had any contractions on my own!

About 5 hours passed and I had still only dilated another 1 cm. But the pain was very tolerable, it just felt like a mild period pain. The midwives couldn’t believe how well I was handling it all! Around 6pm the contractions started getting REALLY bad and I found them hard to cope with. So I asked for the gas. I found this, combined with the breathing techniques (and squeezing the life out of my partner’s hand!) really helped me get through the contractions.

I managed to get through the next 3 hours with the gas and breathing, but I still wasn’t dilating. My baby’s head wasn’t even engaged and the doctors were starting to get concerned as the labour just didn’t seem to be progressing. At around 9pm I decided to have an epidural. I didn’t feel that I could cope with the pain on my own anymore, but felt extremely proud for how long I had gone without pain relief (Apart from the gas).

Once I had the epidural, I felt extreme relief almost immediately. I even asked the midwife if I was still having contractions! An hour later the doctor came in and told me they had decided to do a C-section as the labour wasn’t progressing and also because my son was getting distressed with the contractions (not to mention his head still wasn’t engaged).

I had my C-section at around 11pm and am glad that I had an epidural as I would have had to have one anyway.

I learned throughout my pregnancy, and still today, that everyone has an opinion on what is best for you, and for your baby. Only you truly know this. So I think if you aren’t coping with the pain of childbirth, there is nothing wrong with having pain relief and no one should make you feel bad for it.

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When I first found out I was pregnant I was so happy and could not wait to meet my little bundle of joy! However, I found it amazing that there were so many women out there who couldn’t wait to tell me how awful their labour was. This absolutely terrified me and it made me really scared. I started to stop enjoying my pregnancy and I got really depressed. Just about every mum I spoke to seemed to enjoy telling me the amount of pain they were in and how horrendous it all was.

By the time I got to 8 months pregnant I wanted to curl up into a ball and forget that in a few weeks time I will have to go through the same agonizing pain!

At 41 weeks pregnant I went into labour and I remember waking up at 09.30am, getting period pains and I knew it was contractions. I woke my husband and I cried and cried and cried! He asked me what was wrong and I said “I’m getting contractions which means this baby’s coming, which means I’m gonna hurt bad”

I can’t remember another time I was more scared and I kept thinking about all the horror storied I’d heard over the last few months.

By 1pm the contractions were getting quicker and really strong so we rang the midwife, (I was having a home birth). The midwife turned up and examined me – I was 4cm’s dilated. We then all sat down watching TV together and chatting, (in between my contractions)! At 4pm my contractions were really really strong and I asked to have some gas and air to get me through them, this was bliss! at 4.03pm my waters broke, I then started pushing and after 3 big pushes my BEAUTIFUL daughter was born at 4.13pm.

I have never felt anything more magical and beautiful and because I was so relaxed I had no stitches and felt great.

When I told people about my childbirth the first question most people ask is “what pain relief did I use”? When I tell them gas and air they seem amazed! A lot of women find the thought of only having gas and air terrifying but I’m so glad I only used this because I felt every part of my daughter coming out and that, in my eyes, is amazing. I wouldn’t change anything.

My husband found the whole experience, (in his words), “truly amazing”. He finds the female body brilliant and still can’t get his head around how a woman can do it!

Two months later and I’m now desperate for baby number 2!

Childbirth is the most natural, beautiful thing in the world and I urge women to ignore other women’s horror stories and enjoy!

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If like me you found out you were pregnant and decided to have as natural a labour as possible, be prepared for nature to change your plans!

When I first found out I was expecting, I was annoyingly smug about how easy my labour was going to be. I come from a long line of women who have very short labours, no pain relief and are walking around the delivery ward looking radiant within an hour of giving birth. I was born in under 3 hours and my Mum was home within a couple of hours after having me. My sister had two beautiful girls both in under 6 hours, with just a whiff of gas and air and a hand to hold. Naturally, I was 100% sure that I would be the same and was looking forward to perhaps a home birth, but if not that then definately an active birth, with plenty of movement and a birthing pool.

As my pregnancy progressed, I felt fabulous. I grew and grew daily and loved every second of it. I wasn’t even perturbed when the midwife examined me at about 8 months and told me my baby would be well above average weight. Afterall, I had been just under 10 lbs at birth and my Mum had me in the blink of an eye.

My little baby was due on February 12th. This date came and went and although not particularly worried, I started reading up on natural ways to bring the labour on. I ate so many pineapples I had to spend a night on the toilet, I took raspberry leaf capsules, I walked miles, I bumped down the stairs on my behind and I even paid an extortionate amount for reflexology. Nothing. Not even a twinge.

So, on a Sunday, at 12 days overdue, my partner and I went into hospital to be induced. I was amazingly excited and even at that stage wasn’t worried: I just wanted to get on with it and get this little person out so we could meet them. I hadn’t even read up on being induced as I had never thought I would be, and so was blinkered to any of the well known risks.

Within the space of 24 hours, I was given two pesaries of a drug to widen the neck of my cervix and so bring on labour. We waited…..and nothing. On the Tuesday morning at 5 a.m. I was taken down to the delivery suite and my waters were broken. We waited…..and nothing. I was hooked up on a drip to delivery the drug used to bring on labour. We waited….and nothing. All day my partner and I sat around reading, listening to the radio and chatting. Almost as if we were having a leisurely day in an hotel! Late in the afternoon, I was examined and it was discovered my waters had not been properly broken, and

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With my first born I wanted a home birth. When I told people they gasped in surprise that I didn’t want to go into hospital. I took a lot of explaining that I felt hospitals were understaffed, impersonal and would possibly put both myself and my baby at risk from infections such as MRSA. As this was a first pregnancy I was advised against home birth by my midwife and eventually went to a midwife led birthing unit where I had one-on-one care, privacy and above all dignity in a very undignified process. As with a home birth, the only forms of pain relief available were entonox (gas and air) or morphine and there was a neo-natal ambulance available for transport to hospital if any difficulties arose. Luckily all went well and I was delivered of a beautiful boy. With aftercare available I felt I had all the comforts of a home birth with the security of a hospital stay.

When I became pregnant for the second time, the place of delivery became of great importance to me. As I already had a child under two the last thing I wanted was to have to travel around 40 miles to the nearest hospital, especially if I went into labour during the night. With the closure of all local birthing units my options became very limited, but as my health was fine my midwife was happy for a home confinement. With regular checks, close scrutiny of the birthing area and an attention to small details, my midwife team made sure that I was happy with all the arrangements and had everything I needed to have a comfortable home birth. I was advised of the problems associated with home birthing but felt that the pros of comfort and security of being in your own place outweighed the cons raised. As the youngest of four, all home birthed, I was happy with the thought of home confinement, and the added bonus of knowing that my toddler would be with his nan only ten minutes away during the noisy part took the some of the strain away from the impending labour.

However, on my 40+ week check I was found to have pre-eclampsia and had to go to the nearest hospital which happened to be 40 miles away and over an hour to get to. As I was induced in the late evening my husband could not stay for Jack’s birth and I was concerned with the overnight care of our toddler. Whilst I had the best of care whilst I was there, and the added bonus of help with breastfeeding, the distance in miles and time put strain on my husband who tried to get to me every day, and of my toddler who could not understand where his mum had gone. I was there for seven days and ended up feeling very frustrated and out of touch. My new baby had hardly seen his dad and I missed both him and our son like crazy. Whilst I was grateful for the support of the staff at times I felt like I was a burden to them, and to some very definitely a number and not a person. The midwives were obviously understaffed and quite stressed and trying to get to see a doctor was as impossible as catching moonbeams.

Hospital birthing has had bad press of late, with MRSA scares, security scares, cleanliness scares and the overwork of midwife teams. I opted for a home birth as I wanted things to be as comfortable and ‘normal’ as labour can be. Whilst I realised the need to be taken to hospital I found most of my pre-conceived ideas of how it would be came true. Hospital birthing could be so much happier for both parent and staff if a little more care – and a lot more money – was diverted to maternity services. So much press is given to the aid and care of the elderly, yet we seem to neglect our newest members of society – the babies – which I feel is going to cost us much more in the long run.

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Why do we women put ourselves through it?

Why do people never tell the truth about chilbirth?

Why do people say that you forget the pain once the baby arrives?

Why do we go and do it all over again?

My first pregnancy was a surprise. Normally a slim size 8, I managed to shrink to a size 6, thanks to the wrongly named morning sickness. I suffered day and night for the first six months. That was just the beginning, then came the urine infections. And just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, along came labour.

My labour amazed me. It started three days before my darling daughter made an appearance. When it got too much, I was escorted to the hospital by my partner and my mother in law on the underground (on account of my partner being cheap). My word of advice to any expectant mothers is plan your journey, it is very embarassing having labour pains in front of a carriage full of strangers.

Once we got to the hospital, I was disappointed to find that I was only 2cm dilated. They offered me pain relief but I wanted to do it naturally, stupidly. When it became almost unbearable, I asked for gas and air. Problem was, I now did not have the energy to suck it in. I started complaining that it didn’t work. Hearing that, my partner thought he would try. It worked for him and he became very drowsy.

After being at the hospital for six hours (now midnight) my partner decided to go home and get something to eat. He disappeared after that.

When I had finally dilated the whole 10cm, which is not a pleasant feeling, the midwife informed me that the head was crowning. By now it felt like the baby was coming out of the wrong hole. I have never felt so uncomfortable. I wrongly asked the midwife how much it would hurt. She told me the pain is like drinking a bottle of chilli sauce. I can safely say it was a million times worse. Now the head was hanging out, I decided that I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I got up off the bed and told them I was going home. This resulted in me being pinned to the bed with the midwife holding one leg and my mother in law holding the other. Finally my daughter arrived.

My mother in law rang my partner to see where he was, only to find out that he had been arrested. I still have not forgiven him.

Two years later I was surprised to find out that I was pregnant again. I braced myself for the waves of morning sickness, sore breasts and a map of stretchmarks. I also tried not to think of the labour

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I was 32 and this was my first baby. I loved being pregnant however I wasn’t too keen on the thought of the birthing process. So when I was hospitalised with pre eclampsia (high blood pressure) on my baby’s due date I was a little nervous to say the least! After the doctor had examined me I was positive he said “We are going to send you home” so I started packing my bags. My husband on the other hand heard what the doctor actually said, which was “We are going to induce you. You are going to have a baby.”

From that moment on things are a bit of a blur but even in that state I learned a few things. I learned that you can somehow end up naked in a room full of strangers and not care, kidney dishes are woefully inadequate at capturing the amount of vomit that one’s stomach contains (the ‘gas’ didn’t agree with me!) and that you CAN watch the footy between labour pains! Another important thing I learned was that, for me, pain relief was a must! My husband learnt this the hard way too – never offer a woman in labour your hand to hold!

After all of the drama Josh Richard was born on 9/5/2004. He was born a blue baby (more black than blue though) after an emergency cesarean was performed because he had gone into distress. It took a few minutes to get him breathing. Today, he is a very clever, healthy, happy three year old who lives life to the full. I loved the pregnancy and even the birth, although it was a bit hairy (actually as well as figuratively speaking – hey you try waxing with a belly the size of Santa’s!). My husband and I have decided against having any more children, after all he’s just starting to learn to write again….

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I have given birth twice, the first time with an obstetrician the second with a midwife. I never imagined that there would be so many differences in the delivery process. Below are my observations that I believe every mum to be should consider!

Birth 1

I had a healthy conception and pregnancy with no foreseeable problems. My intention was to wait and give birth when baby was ready, with inducement to occur only if baby was overdue. My mindset was to have an epidural because secretly I feared a natural birth. First time labour is such an unknown, I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I was lucky enough to have my first contraction on the day I was due. However, the contractions occurred quickly and within 1 hour of my first contraction I was 2 mintues apart. When I arrived at the hospital it was 2am. I was told that the anaesthetist was going home and that if I wanted an epidural I’d better decide immediately. I really didn’t have much time to think. The fear of not having significant pain relief, and the fact that my labour occurred so quickly and hence intensely, scared me into saying yes.

I quickly asked for the hospital midwife for advice. At the time I didn’t realise that midwives in a private hospital do not have the authority or permission to aid in the birthing process. They mostly aid the obstetrician. “You’ll probably give birth quickly she said, you are 7 cms but I am not sure” The anaesthetist inserted the epidural while I was contracting inconsistently, 2 minutes apart sometimes 1 minutes apart. Talk about risky. As the pain subsided, so did the contractions and I watched the monitor attached to me and realised I had just slowing my labour down.

The obstetrician was called. He was at home being early in the morning. Being a private hospital in Sydney, there was no doctor on duty. I was 10 cms and ready to give birth. The midwife called again. “Where are you? She is ready to go”

When he finally arrived, he quickly got himself ready and did what he had to do. I am actually very fond of my obstetrician, funny, witty, and calming. He told me what to do, pulled out the forceps, and side cut a double episiotomy. Baby arrived a little distressed because he was waiting to arrive a little too long, but all went well in the end.

What it interesting is my next birth. On the surface the above birth went very well and I received professional and experienced assistance to the best of everyone’s abilities and resources at the time. However, somewhere

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