No Pain, No Gain?

So apparently there's some pain during child birth. As one of Mommy's friends once described it: "It's like squeezing a watermelon through a quarter sized whole." Some other people talk about the fact that sometimes there's a tear between the one hole and the other one. Some emphasize that its not just about the area down below; it's about the whole body experience. That your back aches, you don't get to eat for hours, you are sweating, losing consciousness etc. Sometimes, I hear, there are also complications. Like some babies are shy and nervous and decide they want to come out feet first and others try to push the placenta out before they come out.

For these various reasons and others, mothers today have a variety of pain medications they can use during labor and delivery. Some medications can be given intravenously (that means through the veins), others are given through the/ around the spinal cord.

Some of these medications cause labor to slow down because women can't feel anything so the urge to push is not as strong, others cause drowsiness and nausea. Some women feel itchy and others have headaches. Mommy's not sure how she would react to the medicine. The effect of these medicines on the baby are in some instances known and others unknown. At Mommy's old hospital she was told that 95% of women get epidurals (that's the one that goes in the spine). So it's pretty common these days to get drugs to assist. Doctors at the hospital, people on line, others in books laugh and say, most women who go in "saying no drugs" come out with an assisted labor. After all, that's what medical science has done for us.

Still Mommy's not convinced. She and Daddy went to a natural labor video presentation that showed all kinds of women in San Francisco having babies in tubs of water or on their bamboo floors without drugs and they didn't die from pain. Mommy's got bamboo floors. Daddy could grow a goatee. Auntie Wendy gave Mommy a book called "Active Labor" it talks about women using their various natural techniques to have drug free pregnancies. They did it.

So because so many people seem to be able to have babies without drugs (like women in over half of the world), then why can't Mommy?

On top of the potential reactions Mommy could have or I could have to the drugs and the fact that other people can do it, there's a principal here: Why take a tram to the top of the mountain if you can hike? When you get to the top of a hike you feel the pride of accomplishment of the hike plus the wonder of nature. If you take a helicopter to the top and arrive under a drug haze, can you really experience the magic of being on the top of the mountain?

So no drugs it is. The only exception Mommy is willing to make is if the drugs are needed to save Mommy's or my life. Otherwise, let it rip! We got this far for a purpose; we're not sleeping yet!