This is an important reason why you should talk to your care provider about how they feel about un-medicated births.
I love to read Rebirth’s Blog. She works on the L&D floor. In this post she says what happens to a mom who is wanting to go un-medicated.
So water now broken, woman happy but contracting more strongly almost immediately, the attending stands over the woman with her arms crossed and says, “So I’m told you are doing this natural?”
Before the woman can answer the attending makes a noise like, “Oh, please!” She then goes on to say, “Trust me, you won’t be able to do it! You already needed IV medication when you weren’t quite in labor yet. Don’t go fooling yourself, really!”
Thankfully this nurse helped encourage mom that she could do it. Mom did do it! Horray.
But imagine if she had a nurse who wasn’t supportive. That undermined her too. Mom may not have made it, unless she had a really strong support person helping her.
Talk to your care provider!
Here’s a question.
What if you have more of a two face care provider. Who encourages you in the beginning, but towards the end of pregnancy starts revealing their real intentions?
what are mom’s supposed to do then?
It is never to late to change care providers! I have had moms change at 38 weeks! But an open dialogue from the beginning will hopefully help moms have a good idea of their care providers feelings.
I vividly remember the L&D nurse during my first delivery snorting and saying “Oh honey, you’ll be begging for the drugs”, after I told her they were not an option. I can remember that “Oh honey” like she’s standing in front of me right now. Not a memory a mom should be forced to have for what is one of the most awe-inspiring days of her life.
I told her to leave the room, and not come back. I don’t feel I needed the support of the nurses as much as I needed my own strength. I managed to continue on to have a natural childbirth – and had three more after that as well. And I can assure you, no one questioned me again.