I always said that I was never having children, but if I did, I was going to tell the nurses to “Give me the drugs.” Seriously, the thought of feeling a baby coming out of me terrified me. I had only ever heard of the horrific pain of childbirth and seen screaming women on television yelling at their husbands for getting them in to this condition.

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My thoughts eventually did change though, as my eyes became opened to the dangers of the medication to myself and baby.  One of my college professors, Dr. Nancy Woods, practically gave a full hour-long lecture telling the benefits of natural childbirth for the baby.  She had studied the effects of maternal cocaine use on the development of the child and on the bonding process of the mother and the child.  She found a negative impact on both the child’s development and the bonding process.  She believed very deeply that the drugs used during childbirth would also harm the development of the child and infant-mother bonding in similar ways.  My eyes were opened, but I still thought I would never be able to birth naturally.

Then, my first friend got pregnant.  She, like many women, never even considered unmedicated birth.  It was the year 2002.  Women no longer had to suffer in childbirth, right?  She told me after the birth, that she was in a lot of pain during her labor, and asked to have the epidural as soon as possible.  It took the hospital staff over an hour to get someone in there, and she had no coping mechanism in place to soothe her while she waited.  Then, she got the epidural, which she described to also be horribly uncomfortable, especially with the contractions coming, but it did not work.  Another substantial amount of time passed, and they tried again.  Finally, on the third try, it worked, but the baby came shortly after, and she was unable to feel anything.  She pushed for over an hour and a half, and finally they had to assist with the vacuum.  She also said that she had a backache and dull headache that she attributed to the botched epidurals.  She swore that she would never again get pregnant.

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I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds almost more traumatic than a few hours of feeling the contractions! That did the trick for me.  As soon as I became pregnant, I knew that natural birth was the only way for me.  I have done it three times, so far, and I have never once said that I would never go through it again.  It was not easy, but I know in my heart that it was the right choice for me and my babies.