What's in a OUCH!?

Dear loved ones,

As I am beginning my last month of pregnancy (YAYY!), I have been reading (ok let's call it obsessing) over labor and how women experience birth.  What has been interesting and somewhat surprising is the very varied experiences women seem to have. 

I mean of course there are the women who see your gynormous belly and automatically launch into their birth stories.  'Oh when are you due?  How exciting! Hopefully your labor will be easier than mine I was in labor for a week and then they took me to C section....' ;)  Plus a ton of other unneeded details thrown in. 

But then as I read and solicit information about labor I get very varied responses from 'not that bad' to 'excruciating, terrible.'  And sadly it's not just the pain people are talking about but also the emotional aspect of the labor experience, feeling listened to, feeling supported, feeling that the medical field pulled the rug out from under them and made labor decisions for them that they now regret. 

As I ponder the pros/cons of every labor decision (because actually there are many steps along the way where by doing/or not doing something you are making a decision) I also realize that this has somehow become an issue of empowerment for me. 

Somewhere along the line I realize that I have absorbed a toxic message from the medical world regarding my body.  I don't really trust my body to work 'right' and to work the way it is supposed to.  And the medical world has somehow given me the idea of 'do what we say and then you will be ok.  If you don't, well you are crazy and weird, and hey, aren't you a doctor??' 

At first glance the above statement sounds extreme but it has been my reality.  And it is very different experiencing the medical world as a patient vs. as a doctor.  And maybe even more different being a doctor when other doctors are saying to you 'of course you know to do this.  and of course you will do that.' 

Which brings me back around to the topic of labor.  If you don't trust your body to work right, well then guess what labor is?  A painful, anxiety provoking experience.  But if you feel in sync with your body then labor becomes a beautiful and natural experience to look forward to.  And this makes me believe that just as I feel out of sync with the power of my body to function and to withstand pain, that a lot of women in America do too.  Because most women focus on telling you about their pain and how to avoid the pain.  'Get the epidural! Take the meds! Don't be a hero!' 

Well it's not about being a hero really.  To me it's more about 'where is the pro-con discussion about taking the epidural?'  Why is the con discussion sooo glossed over?  Because we are all afraid of pain?  Because our caregivers don't want to see us in pain?  Because we will become pain in the butt patients if we are in pain?  Because we don't trust that our bodies, in this one instance, were made to be in pain?

And is pain so terrible? 

I don't actually know the answer to this.  I mean I am a big wuss myself.  And I am not pretending I have worked through the above issues, and maybe from the first hours of labor I will say 'forget all this theoretical stuff, I want meds.'  But I still think it has been a worthwhile thing to think about.

So no one in my family (except my mother) took any pain meds for labor.  This includes women who immigrated from Egypt to the U.S. as adults and had their children here.  I have spoken to a few of them and they seem culturally flabbergasted by the assumption that every women's labor is so dystonic that she should numb herself from the waist down.  And almost anyone I speak to who has been born and raised here says the opposite, a kind of, why would you want to put yourself through that attitude......

We are all women.  So why is pain in America experienced so differently?  And it is not a first world-third world distinction either, because European women have hugely different rates of usage of pain medication.  So why is our OUCH worse than their OUCH?  One wonders how much of the psychological contributes to our OUCH.

I talk to my OB briefly at every appointment about my questions and thoughts about labor.  She is a really nice lady, very practical, and well intentioned.  But when I broach the idea of trying for a natural labor, she kind of shuts down on me.  Last visit she told me that she didn't think I would be able to do it.

That statement kind of infuriated me.  Afterwards, it took me a couple of days to consciously reclaim the idea that my body was made to give birth without pain medications.  Maybe my mind can't withstand the pain, but my body will not splinter apart into a billion pieces if I don't get meds.  So really what she was saying is that in her experience the American woman's mind doesn't do labor pain. 

Interesting.

I want my mind and body to feel empowered by my labor experience.  I don't know if accepting pain is one way to do that.  On the other hand, what does approaching the event in an avoidant way do?

Maybe thinking too hard,
Frieda