You Can Have a Baby Without an Epidural!

First – No competition here

There is a lot of competition out there amongst women about their labor and birth experiences. Today I want to come to you and say there is NO competition here, only encouragement. In my opinion, we women need to stick together and encourage each other because we are a powerful sex that gets to carry and deliver life into this world.

And because of that we shouldn’t be scaring each other. We should be lifting each other up and saying, “You can do this! What you want to do with your labor and delivery process is your choice and I am going to say go for it! You’ve got this girl!”.

So, now I want to talk to you a little bit about my experience as a Mama and how my labor and birth experience was beautiful (even though I did it with NO epidural AND my baby was 9 pounds).

I am a nurse. I come from a family with my Dad as an OB/GYN and my Mom as a Labor and Delivery Nurse. I have a lot of good information surrounding me. During my pregnancy this information was very helpful, but I still had fears. I was still very anxious because this was the first time I was going to have a baby (you know what I am saying).

I was a watermelon grower and it HIT ME! Oh my goodness, he has to COME OUT. There is NO going back.

I had to get ready. But I did not know EXACTLY how I was going to do it.

I started asking a lot of questions to my parents ESPECIALLY two months before my due date. I asked every question I could possibly think of (all related to birth), and I asked if there were questions I wasn’t thinking of concerning birth!

I wanted to imagine the process in my mind. I wanted to know how the contractions would feel. I wanted to know when the contractions would get stronger, when I needed to go to the hospital, what would happen when I got to the hospital…?

On and on my questions tumbled out in droves…

But let me tell you, the biggest decision I had to make was if I was going to get an epidural or not.

I said, “No, I do not want an epidural”.

The problem with that is people would ask me. I would tell them, “No, I am not going to have one”. Then, all of these “experienced” mothers would say, “Ok, yeah! I didn’t want either but then when my contractions got to this point and I had labored for this many hours I said ‘I have to have one’ and I couldn’t deal with the pain anymore. So you will probably do the same thing”.

HONESTLY, I got a little tired of hearing all of these “horror stories”, all of these moms that said to me, “You CAN’T do it” That was defeating. 

Then I met this ONE WOMAN.

She was about my age, and she had a son of her own. She asked me about my pregnancy. I started to tell her about how I was planning on not having an epidural because I wanted the experience of giving birth naturally. I told her I was getting a lot of negative feedback and I was starting to become discouraged.

She stopped me before I could even finish and she said:

“Ok, stop listening to all of that negative talk. This is a beautiful thing and you can do it. Of course, there is a ring of fire and it burns! But it is not as bad as everyone keeps telling you it is. And when you hold your baby it is worth it, you forget about it. Yeah, you are a little bit sore, but you’re just so excited that you just bonded with your baby through all of the hard work. The sweat and the tears of pain and joy are worth it. You don’t care anymore. It is only beautiful!”

Second – find your story

You have to create a journey for yourself that will motivate you to keep your birth plan (the end goal of birth). The end goal is so important, and I always encourage Moms to create a sort of mantra to keep them going when times get tough.

I also encourage Moms to explore their mind to remember a time when someone or something encouraged them about birth. 

I watched a movie a month before I delivered. That movie was Mama Mia 2. There is this one part in the movie where the main character is on an island in Greece, in the middle of nowhere. She is living in this old farm house, and she is all by herself.

The music starts playing.

You see her laboring, you see her walking around sweating, and then she delivers her baby.

It was so beautiful!

I walked out of the movie and told my husband, “If she can do it out in the middle of nowhere, in Greece, all by herself in a farmhouse, then I can do this in a hospital with support around me!”.

Maybe that seems a bit dramatized, and when I look back it is kind of funny because it was just a movie. She wasn’t really laboring… it was fake. But when I think about it, I know that there really ARE women around the world that are like that girl in the movie.

Third – make a plan

For thousands of years, and even today, thousands of women around the world are birthing their babies without pain-meds. There is something to be said about that kind of courage and creation.

This hard process, this hard work to bond with your baby is courageous. When your baby is born there is more bonding. You worked extremely hard, but you received a prize from all of your hard work.

But I want to tell you that if you can overcome fears in your mind around natural birth, then you can take steps to engage your body to cope with the pain. This process takes prep work. 

Making a plan to make a plan might sound funny, but it is necessary. It is time for you to make a plan to get involved in a childbirth class that will prep you for the road ahead. This is one part of birth support that will decrease you time in labor, decrease your risk for asking for pain-meds, and decrease your risk for C-Section delivery.

There are many childbirth classes: at your local birth location, at birthing centers, and online. 

Because of my passion to help Moms like you, I have created an online birth class with my proven PEAR Process. Start this journey by downloading my FREE worksheet below.