Aloha: Welcome to Sunny, Warm Pain Relief

epidural

It’s taken a while for me to process the indescribable experience of giving birth, and of doing so in a country that encourages pregnant women to embrace natural (read: drug free) delivery – a timeless method which, presumably, advances in medical science have all but quashed.

Midwifery is another tradition that has been maintained in the UK, and England is one of the few countries left in the world that offers consistent, knowledgeable support to women throughout the duration of this exciting and worrisome time. It’s these midwives that dutifully perpetuate the myth that pain relief in childbirth constitutes an unnecessary intervention that interrupts the body’s natural ability to bring a child safely into this world.

My own ‘natural childbirth’ scenario was deftly revised, however, after nineteen hours of difficult contractions, when my extensive list of birth plan thou shalt nots went swiftly out the window and I heard myself whining pitifully at the new midwife on staff, “But Comfort said I could have the Pethidine and the epidural!” Thereafter I was sucking back as many different kinds of pills, gas, air and injections as the antenatal and labour wards had on offer.

While I’m still on board with the notion that any intervention could theoretically lead to more difficulties, which may then require a further intervention (a ‘cascade,’ as it’s termed), when I read the somewhat recently released BBC News story ‘Pain in Childbirth a Good Thing,’ I nearly choked on my slice of organic, granary toast.

I know that pain relief can, under certain circumstances, be a bad thing. But pain – the hours-long kind that makes you wish you could set your hair on fire just to provide a welcome distraction from a knife-twisting abdominal cramp you wouldn’t even wish on your worst enemy – that kind of pain…a good thing?

An associate professor in midwifery (professor, mind), Dr Dennis Walsh, not only called painful birth a ‘rite of passage’ but actually had the gall to insist that it ‘prepared [a woman] for the responsibility of motherhood.’ You know, because fighting nausea, swollen appendages and immobility for nine months and then lying in a pool of your own sweat and anxiety for three days straight apparently doesn’t do the trick. Personally, I thought I was on an all expense paid trip to Honolulu until someone tapped me on the shoulder and said “Psst. You do know you’re supposed to feed that thing, right?” And even then I was reluctant to leave the luau.

In my opinion, the epidural I had the Sunday morning following my first real labour pains of Friday night probably saved my sanity, if not my imminent fate on the operating table, which was a distinct possibility after so many hours with so little progress. I will never know if things could have happened differently had I only been better prepared. What I do know is that I have a beautiful child who is stronger and happier than I could have ever hoped – one who loves me, and who I love infinitely – and this has nothing to do with how much pain I experienced the morning a helpful team of midwives, doctors and anesthesiologists helped him into this world.

This new fandangle method of a drug-free birth experience may work well for some, but for me I say: bring on the stirrups and IV drip. I’ll be enjoying my Pethidine shooter on the powdery beaches of Hawaii.

Photo by Amin Ashaari