quandry

Once upon a time approximately 11.5 years ago, I was pregnant for the first time.

I was wondering about the age old question that plagues all pregnant women, "Do I look fat in this?" Oh, sorry, wrong question (but in case you were wondering, the answer is yes) The question was, "Natural birth or drugs?" It just so happened that a bunch of my friends and neighbors were also "due" shortly, so this was a regular topic of conversation. The general feel from the crowd was, "Heck yes, get the drugs, what are you crazy?"

But, one neighbor in particular had her baby a few months before mine and she, crazy woman that she was, went natural. As in NO drugs whatsoever. Well, I took one look at her and decided, "pshaw, if SHE can do it so can I" And my decision was made. Besides woman have been having babies for thousands of years without the benefit of man-made drugs! That's what I told myself.

Then I went into labor with darling Hootis. (Insert theme song from Jaws). And it was bad, really bad, worse than I could have even imagined in my worst nightmare. By the end I was begging for some medicinal relief, but it was too late. So to compensate, I was really mean to Stick who was hovering over me and trying to be nice. ( I don't remember being mean, he told me months later.)

Alas, I made it through and could consider myself one of those crazy pioneer/caveman(woman) who'd endured the pains of labor medicinally free. Yea me. Whoop. de. Doo.

Then I went on to have a lot more babies over the ensuing years. Although now I knew how really bad it was going to be. Each time I discovered I was pregnant my first thought was , "yea! another baby! Oh NO, I have to go through labor again!" It hasn't helped that each time my babies are getting BIGGER. Houdini rang in at a nice big 9lbs, 4oz. Ouch.

Now here I am 36 weeks along, and I have come to the conclusion that I'm NOT GONNA DO IT AGAIN! I told my doc the other day, "I realize that I've had all my babies naturally, but I don't want to do it this time. BRING ON THE DRUGS LADY'. In fact I'm not opposed to the methods of the 1950's, where they can just knock me clean out and wake me up when the baby is here all cleaned up and smelling nice. There's a serious appeal to that.

Despite my intentions to labor in a drug induced haze I am worried that I will not make it to the hospital on time and I will have to do it natural again. When I asked the doc about this she agreed that this is a possibility and advised, "If you even think you're in labor, getting running to the hospital!"

I think I'll just set up a tent in the hospital parking lot sometime next week, that way at the first twinge of pain, I can calmly walk in and say, "Hook me up lady, bring on the drugs!"

Wish me luck.

3 Comments

undefined:

I really enjoyed this post...and the verdict's still out about what I'm going to be doing this time around.

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Ok, um........I can not believe you. Come on.....it's not THAT bad! You can do it! Plus, you know you are not gunna make it in time. .. . .oh, I mean,....good luck! :)

**KT

undefined:

Wait. Wait. waitwaitwait. What? You've had all those babies and never had drugs?! You're crazy. The evil docs tried to tell me both times that I was too late for the drugs because my kids came too fast. I demanded that they try anyway. Soooooooo much better. I vote for drugs. Plus, I think you should do it once for comparison purposes anyway. Like research so you can advise your daughters fully in the future.

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