Natural Birth at a Hospital

I would say that this quite possibly may be a challenge for me or for anybody for that matter.

If you were at a birth center, or choose to do a homebirth, you don't have the option of an epidural. If an emergency arises, then yes, a midwife will take the necessary steps to get you taken care of.

Natural birth is already something that I want to experience and I feel like now that I am birthing in a hospital it may be just a little bit harder.

Thank God I have my awesome doula(Britney) to help me with this. Her and my wonderful husband will be a huge help. Not only to help me to relax but they will both remind me at how badly I want a natural birth. They will (hopefully) ;) keep those nurses away from me that want to ask me if I want painkillers.

I think that hospitals don’t expect women to give birth naturally.  They don’t expect that you understand or are prepared for your labor and birth.  They don’t expect you to be able to manage your contractions. They expect that you will be in pain, be overwhelmed, and want interventions and medication and that is what they are set up to provide. They don’t expect that you would actually desire to have a natural birth experience. I am not against hospitals in any way. I just think that they push it too far sometimes. But I mean they do somewhat have a point, why go through pain that can easily be managed by drugs? I have had a lot of women ask me why? Why do I want to do a natural birth?

I want to be in complete control of everything that my body is doing. When I had the epidural with my son I had no control over my legs, I couldn't feel him coming out and the result in that was he came out much too quickly in my opinion. He was pushed out in 20 minutes(my husband says it was less) the result of that was an awful tear! ugh! Postpartum healing in that region down there was no joke. I seriously needed a full 6 weeks of healing, and it took me awhile after that to even think about sex. I seriously believe that if I were to feel him while pushing, and was taking my time and not pushing as hard as I could like the hospital midwife wanted me too I would not have torn nearly as bad. I don't want that awful postpartum experience again. 

There are many other reasons that I want to go natural but I won't list them here. That probably should be in another blog post. :)

I will still be open to options for when i go to the hospital to have my baby. But as for now, I really desire a natural, drug-free birth. Women have success stories and that is super encouraging to me. I have done a ton of my own research on the different types of drugs that are offered and what exactly they do to you and your baby. Compared to my son's birth I am so much more prepared for this little one, I hope that her birth is gentle and beautiful as I imagine it to be.

Do you have any good advice on having a success natural birth experience?

I would love to know!

Thanks for reading my thoughts! :)

-Jess