A lot of people think I was crazy not to have requested pain relief during labor. But honestly, it was one of the most empowering, intense, and real moments of my life. Ina May writes, “Have you never heard anyone speak positively about labor and birth before? If so, you are not alone. One of the best-kept secrets in North American culture is that birth can be ecstatic and strengthening.”

She continues, “Ecstatic birth gives inner power and wisdom to the woman who experiences it, as you will learn from many of the birth stories told here (in her wonderful book “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth”). Even when women in my village experience pain in labor, the understand that there are ways of making the sensations of labor and birth tolerable that do not involve numbing the senses with drugs. They know that it is better to keep their senses alive it they are to experience the true wisdom and power that labor and birth have to to offer.

I had a midwife (Sally Urang at Long Island College Hospital) deliver my baby. I did consider doing it at home, but I was afraid and also it would not have been covered by my insurance. I did not have an alienating experience at the hospital. I was lucky enough to be in a private room with a tub which I frequently entered while the contractions ebbed and flowed.

I remember at one point thinking it was me against the pain. Each contraction would arrive and I would grit my teeth, hold onto the side of the bath and make this low guttural sound in an attempt to drown out the pain. It seemed to work and after a while I saw a pattern to the pain…. each contraction only lasted for a minute or so and then there were a couple of minutes rest. Then back on again. At some point I started to feel delerious, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going and the pain had become so intense, I couldn’t imagine how this baby was ever going to come out. But amazingly, and this I remember from my birthing classes, at that precise moment, the moment when you can’t bear it anymore and you don’t know where to put yourself, I started to feel an unbelievable desire to push.

Sally took a look and confirmed my suspicions. Within minutes I was pushing…. and about half an hour later Nina joined the world. I cannot begin to describe the sense of euphoria and utter amazement as this bundle of arms and legs was handed to me. I was completely in shock and my body felt higher than any night of drug taking. It was a true moment of joy. That’s got to be one of the reasons why women go back and do it again….

But going back to pain relief, I think I have a high tolerance threshhold, but still, I went in there determined not to take pain relief. I knew I wasn’t going to die from pain and that it wouldn’t last forever. That sense of creation, of being an animal, of taking control and fighting pain to the maximum, these are experiences that have changed my life forever. They raise the benchmark considerably and I am only looking upwards from here.

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February 20th, 2006 | Permalink