From the beginning, I was very passionate about having a natural child birth. Steve, not so sure- after all modern medicine has made great strides in pain relief- but after taking the Bradley Method classes we were both very much on board!
That was until my doctor started talking about inductions due to a borderline blood pressure that went up the last 2 weeks of my pregnancy. I held off the induction until 9 days after my due date, but sadly never went into true labor on my own.
Steve and I got to the hospital at 5:30 AM to check in and by 6:30 the pitocin drip was started. After a few hours the doctor checked to see if I'd made any progress and broke my water. This started a wave of the most unbelievable contractions ever! I fought hard against the contractions for about 7 hours but in the end I made the decision to have the epidural due to non - stop contractions. Steve was a great coach though and held me off from the epidural for about 2.5 hours from my original request. Everything was so intense! I got very panicked and couldn't focus on moving forward so the epidural allowed me to do that.
We learned (after the doctor checked me again) that the baby's head wasn't coming down correctly and had to be moved into position. Once in position, I took a short nap and relaxed for a while which allowed me to fully dialate in about 3.5 hours! The epidural was turned down which allowed me to push and still experience the birth, which was a huge relief. I began pushing at 5:15pm and at 6:19pm James was born!
All in all it was a wonderful experience, despite the epidural. I attribute such a positive labor to our Bradley instructor Bridget Brown. We were so informed of our choices and while we would've loved to have the whole natural experience, we were still able to make wise decisions throughout the birth and pregnancy.
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