One of the young women I mentor was recently in the beginning of labor and texted me that it was much harder than she expected it to be. I shared this with the chat room and so many of them gave me great advice but Robin gave amazing advice. She wrote, "Five drug-free natural births; BREATHE, pray, sing, shower, sit in the tub, walk, walk, walk, walk. Did I mention WALK? Dancing {birth dance; swaying hips which comes naturally if you're relaxed}. Water. Water birth is a good birth. It's really all about relaxing your mouth. If your mouth is relaxed, so is your perinea {weird, huh?}. Learned this from a midwife. So, if your mouth is tense, your jaw and you're gritting your teeth, try doing those "horse sounds" with your lips; loosen the mouth. It works like a charm. The perinea will relax and then the whole labor will be more relaxing. You CANNOT fight this thing. Give up. Then it's wonderful!"
Michelle Duggar had many of her 19 children naturally and it appears her daughters and daughters-in-law are going to also try to do it naturally, even have them at home. Even the Duchess had a natural birth and was able to walk out of the hospital 10 hours after giving birth! There are many risks to having a long needle put into your spinal cord. Therefore, you must weigh the risks with the benefits, if you have a choice. You also must be very determined before you go into labor to try and have it drug-free because once you begin labor, it's easy to change your mind!
I had my first two babies naturally. I labored all by myself. Ken was there but he was watching a ball game. He tried helping but I told him the breathing thing wasn't working so he told me to stop doing it if it didn't work. Our childbirth classes didn't help much or prepare either of us. I wish I could have had a midwife or Douala to help me or I probably would have had my last two naturally also. I had epidurals for each of them. The first one worked great! The second one didn't so much. I had a large area on my stomach that I could still feel so I guess my fourth child, I had mostly natural.
There are definitely circumstance when you need an epidural and you may just decide you don't want to have to go through the pain. Even if you get an epidural, you WILL have to go through pain. You will most likely be in active labor and have been for awhile before you get to the hospital to get an epidural so the information that Robin shared is for any woman who is preparing for childbirth without a scheduled cesarean. Even if you have a scheduled cesarean, you may begin labor before your scheduled time so this information is great to have in your back pocket just in case! Oh, and the woman who texted my who was in labor, she arrived at the hospital fully dilated and had her baby completely natural texting me afterwards that it went as "good as I could have hoped for!"
Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.
John 16:21
