No pain = lots of gain, or why I chose an epidural

I didn't really feel any contractions. My waters broke without any and, due to the infection risk, 24 hours later our baby was induced. As I was confined to the bed anyway, which is considered one of the main disadvantages of an epidural, my indecision over whether or not to have one disappeared and I decided to take the drugs. Don't worry - we had our fair share of pain and issues that night and subsequent nights, not least because my placenta refused to budge, but contractions were not one of them. 

I don't buy into the idea of pain as a positive force. I wouldn't have my wisdom tooth extracted without pain relief or my heart bypassed or any other operation without anaesthetic, so why would I for childbirth? But the pain of childbirth, unlike the pain of toothache, is so deeply embedded in our culture (Damn you, Eve) as something that women should go through, somehow I feel as if I cheated a little. 

Isn't that ridiculous? I took a positive decision to make the most of modern medicine, to save my energy for when the baby arrived, to dull the pain that many women describe as making them feel they might die, and I don't think well done me, what a great decision, but I think I cheated. How deep misogyny runs huh, even amongst women, even against ourselves. 

Practising what you preach

Apparently my ante-natal teacher, yes the one who counselled us against opting for an epidural, who told us to while away the early hours of labour by building a 'nest' of pillows and duvets in the corner of a room to retreat into, who suggested we might like to go through birth using hypnotherapy techniques we could pay her to teach us, let slip that she had a boob job and a tummy tuck after having her kids. 

The general message her classes put across (and I will blog another time about the misogyny of the ante-natal lobby) is that intervention is bad, painkilling drugs are for the weak and medicalised is a dirty word. So all I can say is I hope, when the scalpel was cutting open her tits to insert silicon bags under the skin, when they were stitching together skin on her belly and separating strands of muscle (I'm making this up - I have no idea how surgeons tuck tummies or expand breasts), well I hope she practised what she preached and said "thanks for the offer of anaesthetic but I will just breathe through it while visualising my childhood home."