59 days and counting ... Bradley Class No 4

Wow. It is 58 days until my due date. Almost all of my friends have delivered early, so I hope to be ready by Christmas! I am getting VERY anxious about being prepared.

Tonight Morgan and I went to the 4th Bradley class in our series. This weeks session was entitled "The Coach's Role" and we were very excited about the material as it was mainly geared towards Morgan.

Part of the coach's role is to be an educated participant in making decisions in the moment about medications and procedures.

I have to admit, that while I have been certain that I wanted to go natural since the beginning, I have even more resolve after tonight's class. We talked a lot about Analgesia (opium based narcotics) and Anesthesia (epidurals - which are cocaine based).

I was already sure that even in the worst case scenario we would opt out of the narcotics. However, I did not know that the narcotics are most likely to cause respiratory problems in the baby, which in turn means that it is taken away for observation until the breathing settles and you do not get to nurse or hold the baby, that they have to give the baby narcan (spelling? something like that) which is an anti-narcotic used to bring drug addicts back to consciousness to make the baby alert - NOR did I know, more importantly (almost, it is all pretty important) that it takes 2 WEEKS for the narcotics to get out of the baby's system. Not the way we are going to bring Thriller into the world ... even if I have to have a C-section I am opting out of any narcotics.

However, I have been more conflicted about the epidural. If I needed it, I was going to be open to it. In class, from the doctors, as well as through the stories and experiences of those I love there is no question that there is a place for the epidural in birthing, especially if it can lead to preventing further intervention (which would be very rare, but possible) or if you are having a c-section. I had heard rumors about chronic back pain being a side effect of the epidural, but I was still keeping a pretty open mind with very strong hopes that we made it through all the way without one.

And my new reason for not wanting an epidural or spinal is completely focused on me and preventing pain. Which may sound strange.

Apparently Epidurals and Spinals can cause migraines, and if you are already a migraine sufferer it is most likely that you will have the worst migraine pain of your life. This is because of a change in spinal fluid pressure on your brain stem. Okay people, I've already had what I thought was the worst migraine pain of my life. No way in hell I am doing ANYTHING that will most likely cause me to be in worse migraine pain that I have already experienced. I can't imagine that the most painful constant back labor and/or un-medicated episiotamy could be more painful.

In addition, immediately following the birth I would have to lie on my back to balance out the spinal fluid pressure and potentially the doctors would have to add more fluid back into my spine to get the migraine to stop ... I'm sure there is a more medically correct way to explain all this but this is the gist.

Not only would all of this be incredibly painful, but it would render me completely unable to nurse right away, hold the baby or do any of the things that I want to be able to do right after the baby is born. All of this would prevent me from being able to take the best care of Thriller possible.

My fear of the worst migraine of my life is much for extreme than my fear of labor. If there is a 2% chance it is too high, and it is much higher than 2%. The only way I will have an epidural is if I have a c-section - which god willing won't happen.

We can do this! And I have the best coach in the world.