Why I Chose to Have a Natural Birth

It seems like whenever another woman finds out that I had my baby naturally she feels like she has to defend herself and explain why she HAD to have an epidural. It usually sounds something like this, "I think I would have died," "It hurt so bad," or " Thank heavens for epidurals! I couldn't have done it with out one." Usually that is the end of the conversation and they never ask me WHY I wanted to have a natural birth. I guess they just assume I am just a weird masochist who likes pain, like someone who doesn't get Novocain at the dentist's office. Just one time I wish someone would, after defending themselves, ask me why I chose to have a natural birth. So, since I can write anything I want on this blog, I've decided that I am going to explain my decision to have a natural birth. I know that majority of the women who read my blog had epidurals, but I don't mind if people have different opinions. I believe a woman has the right to give birth how and where ever she wants. This is just my opinion and my experience. They are listed in order of the most important reason down to the least important reason:

1) I wanted to feel everything. I wanted to be fully present and fully responsible for what was happening to my baby and my body. I wanted to feel myself open, feel the baby coming down into the world, feel my body and my baby working together, and I especially wanted to feel the exact moment when my baby left me and entered the world. That moment was SO important to me. It was one of the few times in my life when I was directly connected to heaven, when I became a portal through which God sent a new spirit into the world. For a few hours God worked the greatest miracle-- the creation of a human soul-- through me.

When I looked at labor from an eternal perspective, I realized that my mortal life is so short. I realized that I will only have the opportunity to be the conduit of mortal life a few times and then it is over. Never again in my eternal existence will I get to experience labor and birth like I do here on earth. Never again will I get the be a portal between heaven and earth. I realized that the suffering of childbirth is SO SHORT in the eternal perspective of life, but the lessons a woman learns in those hours changes her soul eternally. I believe that God could have made childbirth easy, but He didn't because He had eternal lessons to teach his daughters that could only be learned through enduring to the end. I didn't want to miss those lessons, no matter how hard it was going to be.

2) I wasn't afraid. Early on in my pregnancy I decided that I was going to have my baby naturally (and at home, but that is another story) and decided that I was going to do all I could to make that possible. Yet despite my decision I still had fears about natural childbirth. I had heard dramatic horror stories about birth all my life, and only knew a handful of women who had actually had babies naturally. Luckily I have an AMAZING sister-in-law who had her baby naturally 6 months before I did, so it didn't seem so impossible. Still, I was a little afraid.

Then one night when praying for peace about my baby and my labor, the scripture "Perfect love casteth out all fear" came to my mind. I realized that God was in perfect control of the universe. That He knew me, He knew my baby, and He knew what experiences would be best for both of us. I knew that it if I put my faith in Him, I could do anything. I also got the most beautiful assurance that everything was going to be alright, and that God wanted my baby to get to earth safely and peacefully. My job was to listen, have faith, and wait. When the labor started I wasn't afraid at all, I felt in control and at peace. I knew that God was watching over me.

I think being afraid is one of the main reason women get epidurals. Not only does fear make you less emotionally and mentally capable of dealing with labor, but it makes the contractions hurt more and slows down labor. When a woman is tense and scared her body goes into "fight or flight" and contracts muscles, constricts blood vessels, and prepares to defend itself. In fact, animals who are in a labor will stop labor completely if they get scared or are in an unsafe spot. The best thing a woman can do in labor is learn not to be afraid.

3) I trusted by body. I knew that God had designed my body to give birth, and that my body knew how to do it-- even if my mind didn't. I knew that my baby knew how to be born and that my body would help him in every way it could. I knew that if I turned off my mind and let my body take over, it would do what it was designed to do-- and it did. Our society teaches women that their bodies are dysfunctional, flawed and unreliable, but the truth is they are just the opposite. Women have THE MOST amazing bodies, and I believe that all the lies that women hear about what their body should be doing or what it should look like, are attempts by Satan to hurt women and destroy families. Women's bodies are beautiful, strong and miraculous-- don't listen to anyone who tires to tell you otherwise.

4) I was prepared physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I was glad that pregnancy was 9 months long because I needed that long to get myself prepared for natural birth. My sister-in-law explained to me that her philosophy was that labor was like a marathon. If you tried to run a marathon with no training, physically or mentally, you would end up getting scooped off the pavement at mile marker 10. If you trained for it, then the race is still the hardest thing you've ever done in your life, but it is possible and it is life changing. Just like a marathon, labor is 1% physical and 99% mental.

These are some of the things I did to prepare for natural labor:

Physical: Respected my bodies limits, swam every other day up until the month before my due date (I probably could have gone longer but my pass expired), ate healthy, did yoga, walked, and made Jon give me back rubs.

Mental: Jon and I took hypnobirthing classes which helped SO much. They helped me create a healthy mindset about pregnancy and labor. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about if it would work or not, but when I was in labor and Jon turned on the tape I immediately relaxed and went to a happy place. I don't remember ever listening to the words, but because I had practiced, just the sound of it made my mind and body peaceful and calm.

Emotional: Mostly I worked on conquering my fears. This wasn't easy and I was working on it up to the very moment I went into labor. I still have fears to work through (for the next birth) but I realize now that most of them are irrational or things I can't control, and that I need to just let go of them.

Spiritual: Prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer. I also read a lot of birth stories by women who spoke about their births being spiritual experiences (rather than horror stories) and found peace from stories about women in the scriptures. Also my midwife was wonderful and spent hours with me talking about how amazing birth is and about how women's bodies are miracles. She brought me a lot of peace, and sometimes our prenatal visits would last two hours! Thinking about Eve also brought me a lot of peace, to realize that she was the first to go through labor and what it must have meant to her.

5) I was terrified of having a c-section and knew that my chances of having one were higher if I had an epidural.

I won't go into a whole bunch of research or statistics, because most of you probably already know it all. If you don't, here is a resource. It seems that all the research I've looked at shows that mothers and babies have better births and are healthier when they have fully natural births. Not that babies or mom's with epidurals are unhealthy, but statistically your chances of having a healthy birth are higher when you do it naturally (and are not induced-- but that is another subject for another day).

Also, I wanted to take responsibility for my birth, and when you have an epidural you turn the responsibility over to someone else-- the doctor, the nurse, the hospital. Laboring naturally puts the woman in control, she is the one who knows what is going on in her body, she doesn't have to look at a monitor to find out. She is the one who knows when it is time to push, she doesn't have to have the nurse tell her when to. She is the one who knows when the baby is coming, and she is the one who knows what is happening better than anyone else. Epidurals may be great and take away the pain, but to me giving away the control over my body and my baby's birth was not worth it.

Even so, I don't think there is one right way to birth, because every baby, every woman and every situation are different. I just wanted to share my experience and what it meant to me. I hear and read SO many women who talk about their births being traumatic or scary and it makes me SO SAD. Because birth does not have to be like that. When a woman is prepared mentally, physically and spiritually and she feels safe and supported, birth can be a beautiful, peaceful, calm, and empowering experience. That is what it was for me and I pray that other women (who want it) are able to have it. If you want to have a natural birth YOU CAN DO IT! Really you can, but just realize you need to BE PREPARED because most hospitals and popular culture are working against it, but it is VERY POSSIBLE and it is worth it.

My son's birth was the most amazing experience of my life, thus the reason I am still writing about it almost a year later. I won't lie and say it didn't hurt, because it did. There came a point when I was so tired, so discouraged, so hurting, so scared, and feeling so inadequate that I KNEW I couldn't birth the baby by myself. That is when I felt angels standing by me. I knew I wasn't alone, and that my baby wasn't alone. I felt that there were other women, women who had gone through the same experience, carrying me through the pain and the exhaustion. And when I finally was delivered I felt the most exquisite joy and peace. Imagine having the biggest adrenaline high you've ever had, mixed with the feeling you get when a baby smiles--- that is what I felt. It was overwhelming and it made ALL of the pain worth it a hundred times over.