A Note/Warning About Natural Births

So, for various reasons, I had decided that I wanted a natural birth--a protest against the growing onslaught of unnecessary medical interventions (unnecessary, not necessary and life-saving!), a feminist statement about a woman's body's abilities, alertness at birth, yadda yadda yadda. We had hired a wonderful doula and my doctor was on board. I wasn't particularly worried about labor because I was looking forward to not being barfy every day for months on end. Anything seemed better than that. When I went into labor around 4 am on April 25, I was excited, not nervous. I woke the hubby up, we piled into the car, he almost forgot to put it in reverse and almost ran into the house, and off we went to the hospital.

All went well but my water never broke. I remember thinking the labor hurt, but wasn't torturous. I remember thinking, "Yeah, this is painful but what's the big deal?" Then the doctor came in and informed me that she wanted to break my water to speed things along. I was happy to do that. And speed things along it did. I had the baby a few hours later. A few hours of excruciating pain later. Excruciating. Did I mention it was excruciating? I vividly remember at one point asking if it was too late for drugs. The doula gently suggested giving it one more contraction. I assented but privately I thought, "This is fucking bullshit. Why am I doing this?" But it was over soon and after only 7 minutes of pushing, we had an awesomely cool baby.

Now here's the warning...because things had happened so fast after my water was broken, I failed to drink. I was offered water but refused it. So by the time Townes arrived, I was very dehydrated. My blood pressure was high so the doctor hooked me up with an IV of fluids. Several hours and bags of fluid later, I really had to pee. I asked the nurse how I needed to proceed, being hooked up to the IV machine. I believe the conversation went something like this:

Me - "Um...I need to go to the bathroom. Do I wheel in the IV?"
Nurse - "Why don't I just go with you."
Me - "Thanks but that won't be necessary."
Nurse - "You've been down for a while and lost some blood. And your blood pressure's been elevated. People tend to pass out when they sit down on the toilet."
Me - "Oh I won't pass out."
Nurse - "Still, just in case, I should come."
Me - "Of course! If you need to, then that's fine."

So I went to the bathroom nurse and IV in tow. Sat down and then I remember saying, "I feel woozy." Next thing I knew I came to to a bevy of nurses in the bathroom and saw Randy standing in the doorway, holding the baby, looking horrified. Once I got back in bed and some time had passed, I was just fine.

But consider yourself warned ladies o' the natural birth. Drink plenty of fluids or risk passing out Elvis style.