Jessica: Epidural Birth Story
Jessica shares her empowering birth story. Jessica chose an epidural for pain management, and she chose optimal positioning for the birth of her baby. Love reading positive birth stories? You’re in the right place!
I started having contractions on my due date which was Saturday 18 Feb but on the Sunday they fizzled out and stopped. On the Sunday night, contractions started up again. They got more intense but didn’t get very close together. I had hired a TENS machine so was using that and paracetamol to help with the pain. After midnight I wasn’t managing the pain anymore and my contractions were still only around 8 minutes apart. I called the delivery suite and they said I could go in for some reassurance and to check me out.
Heading to Hospital
The moment I left the house the contractions started coming every 3 minutes. By the time they triaged me, the CTG was showing regular contractions. An examination showed I was 1.5cm dilated. I really wanted to use birth pool but because I’d gone in on 2 occasions with reduced movements and potentially had low amniotic fluid they said I would need to be on continuous CTG. They put me in a room and gave me some codeine to help with the pain. This worked well. I could also start using gas and air (which I didn’t really like at first because it made me feel drunk and a little sick).
By the time the staff had changed over and I had another examination I was still only 1.5cm dilated. To help things along I agreed to having a membrane sweep. This intensified the pain but by two hours later I still had not made much progress so the midwife broke my waters. This again intensified the pain. I decided to have pethidine.
Keeping Mobile
The midwife encouraged me to stay mobile so I used the birth ball and went for a walk. It seemed like every time I moved I would get a contraction and the pain was getting more and more intense. By that evening I was only 5cm dilated and exhausted. I didn’t want to have more pethidine because of the effects it can have on the baby. The exhaustion and pain made me decide to have an epidural. I was very upset and disappointed at this point because it’s not what I had wanted.
They put the epidural in at 7pm and the pain faded away. It saved me! It was such a relief and I could finally get some rest which I did until about midnight. The midwife examined me and I was 10cm. She said she would leave me for an hour to allow for “passive descent” as they normally do with epidurals. As they were continuously monitoring the baby they asked me to be on my back. When the time came to start pushing I wasn’t feeling the contractions at all and didn’t have any urges to push so it was very strange when they were telling me when to push. I wanted to be upright and forward so I was leaning over the back of the bed with my knees in and ankles out.
Eventually I started to feel an ache in my sit bones with each contraction. I responded to that and started pushing with my down breath. After what felt like a very short time, I pushed my baby out on my own and he was born at 3:37 on Tues 21st Feb.
Reflecting on Birth
Whilst I was very disappointed at the time, looking back now I am happy with all the decisions I made and how my labour and birth went. I really wanted to try have an unmedicated birth but because of how long it took it just wasn’t possible for me. Even though things didn’t go to plan (which I knew wasn’t likely) I feel proud. I used EBRAN but because I’d done the course the decisions were easy to make because I’d educated myself and the right choices became obvious. I don’t know why I felt like having an epidural was cheating in some way… Now having had one I don’t know how women go without it! Maybe if the labour and birth happens quickly it’s over before you know it but because my labour was slow and painful and exhausting the epidural was 100% the right choice for me.
Thank you Beth so much for putting together such an easy to follow and helpful course. I found it especially useful to have the information from a UK based midwife and really appreciated the input from the other healthcare professionals involved.
