Epidural: A Love Story, or Why Having a Medicated Birth Doesn't Make You Less of a Supermom

I was reading parenting.com today, as I often do, when I came across a post by Jenny Feldon, one of the Project Pregnancy bloggers. In Supermom Does Childbirth-The Natural Way?, Jenny, pregnant with Baby #2, wonders if she should opt for natural childbirth this time around vs. getting an epidural as she did with Baby #1.

Jenny writes, "Shouldn’t Supermom be able to handle natural childbirth with strength and grace? I’m fascinated by women, like my own mother, who have delivered multiple children without the benefits of anesthesia. If she could do it, shouldn’t I be able to? If I’m strong enough to be a mom, then maybe I should be strong enough to go it alone starting with that very first contraction."

The tone of this bothered me a bit. I mean, don't get me wrong, if you want to do natural childbirth and not have an epidural or any other kind of medical intervention, knock yourself out. I'm all for women having the freedom to make these choices and if Jenny or any other woman chooses this, that does not bother me at all.

What does bother me is the implied subtext here--that giving birth completely "natural," aka unmedicated, makes you a better mom or a stronger woman or something, and that if you choose to have an epidural, you are less of a woman or weak or a worse mother or something. I mean, if that were true, what would that say about women who end up having to have a c-section? Are they not Supermoms then because their bodies couldn't deliver their babies without major medical intervention? Of course not! Can we stop ranking the levels of our motherhood, ladies? We're all equally mothers from the moment the lines appear on the pee stick, and we're all trying to do the best we can. We're all Supermoms here!

Now all of that said, I didn't title this post "Epidural: A Love Story" without reason. I think the epidural is AWESOME. I'm all for it. And I don't think it makes me less of a Supermom or a woman because I do. I never questioned whether to have one or not to have one--I always wanted to have one, partially because of the birth story I'm most familiar with--my own.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she had gestational diabetes, and as a result of this, I was a very large baby. The military doctors my mother was seeing also allowed her to go a full three weeks past her due date with me, so I was extra large (9 lbs, 11 oz). When my mother finally went into labor, she labored hard for about 18 hours...at which point, they gave her an epidural for half an hour to give her "a chance to rest." My mother, in retelling the story, always describes the time period when she had the epidural as "THE BEST 30 MINUTES OF MY LIFE." When it wore off, she had eight more hours of hideous pain, and then the doctors realized, duh, this baby is too large to have ever been delivered vaginally AND she's stuck sideways in there, so maybe we should do a c-section before both mother and baby die.

The story ends with my mother recounting how she wasn't very happy to see me after all that (LOL) and it was a terrible experience. Now, she loves me very much, but my birth story IS pretty awful. And I think she's a Supermom for surviving all of that, especially because what she went through meant she couldn't have any more children after me, which is why I'm an only child.

When I was pregnant and thinking ahead to labor, my only thoughts were, "I want an epidural and I'd like to avoid a c-section if I can, but if we need it, I'll do it sooner rather than later. Oh, and I'd rather tear naturally than have an episiotomy." That's it. That's all I thought, and that's all I communicated to my doctor. That was the sum total of my birth plan.

As I approached my due date, I did do all sorts of things to help along the dilation process, so that with 11 days to go, I was already 2.5 cm dilated. I had a checkup with my doctor and he was concerned about how big the baby was going to be in 11 days--his estimate was over 8 pounds. How did I feel, he asked me. I don't want to go past my due date, I told him. I'm worried I'll end up like my mom with a big baby and need to have a c-section and I'd like to avoid that if I can. Since my due date was on a Saturday when he would not be on call, he suggested we induce me in exactly a week--four days before my due date.

So that was the plan. I was only a little concerned about being induced early -- I had one friend where induction didn't work for her and she ended up having a c-section, but they induced her a few weeks early, which was more likely why that was her result. Another friend has been induced twice a few days before her due date and both times, the baby was born a few hours later, no problem, so I was hoping I'd be more in that situation.

As it turns out, I didn't have to worry. A mere 12 hours later, I spontaneously went into labor 10 days early. It was 12:30 a.m. and I was on my way to bed when what I thought was my water broke. I called and they told me to come in, but no need to rush. So I took a shower, styled my hair, and applied fresh makeup--I am Glam-O-Mommy for a reason! My husband also took a shower--hey, for all we knew, I had 26 hours of labor ahead of me! While I was getting ready, my contractions started. The first one wasn't bad. Seven minutes later, the next one wasn't bad. Five minutes later, the next one still wasn't too bad. TWO MINUTES LATER, OMG BAD!! Less than two minutes later, OMG BAD!!

At this point, it was 1:40 a.m. and we were on the way to the hospital. My husband wasn't speeding or anything crazy, although I urged him to, because the contractions were less than two minutes apart, OMG BAD!

We parked at the hospital, walked down LITERALLY the longest hallway ever, with me having to stop every few feet because OMG BAD! OMG BAD! and finally entered Labor and Delivery. I walked right up to the nurse at the desk and said, and I quote, "If you need to wake up the anesthesiologist, please call and do so NOW because I want an epidural as soon as possible." Seriously.

They checked me out in triage and I was 4.5 cm, my water hadn't broken yet (apparently, it was the plug), but they were definitely checking me in. They asked me what seemed like a thousand questions, got me into a Labor and Delivery room, put IVs in me (I was positive for Group B Strep so I had to have an IV), and then asked me a thousand more questions. (I got asked my height over and over--still have no clue why!) The whole time I was OMG BAD! OMG BAD! less than a minute apart and in the less than 60 seconds between contractions I was all, "WHERE'S THE ANESTHESIOLOGIST?! WHERE'S MY EPIDURAL?!"

Because y'all, contractions HURT LIKE HELL. I had mine up front AND in my back and the back ones hurt way worse than anything I've ever felt in my life. They kept saying the anesthesiologist was on his way and would be there any minute and I should just focus on breathing and all I felt was OMG BAD! OMG BAD! OMG BAD! And it wasn't like how they described contractions in my childbirth class, where they said you would have a BREAK between contractions where you could REST. I did not have that! As soon as one contraction was ending, I could literally feel the next one revving up. I couldn't catch my breath, my blood pressure was sky high (gee, I have no idea why! OMG BAD! OMG BAD!), and I just wanted my epidural.

Then, the pain became so intense, I threw up. Twice. OMG BAD! OMG BAD! And then I heard the magic words, "The anesthesiologist is coming."

Dr. Johnson arrived and I was so happy to see him. I was also worried, because I didn't think I could hold still for him to get the needle in my back because the contractions were so intense I was shaking all over. No problem, he told me. He got the needle in and in seconds, I felt blissfully numb from the bump down. No more OMG BAD!

"Dr. Johnson, I could kiss you!" I told him. "If you hadn't just thrown up, I'd take you up on that," he replied. Favorite. Doctor. EVER!

It was now 3:30 a.m. I had endured two straight hours of OMG BAD! contractions less than a minute or two apart. They checked me and I was 7 cm. My parents had just arrived at the hospital, so everyone cleared out of the room and my husband brought them back to hang out with us. For the next three and a half hours, I zoomed from 7 cm to 10 cm dilated without feeling a thing but BLISS. I was relaxed, savoring my last moments of pregnancy, talking with parents and my husband, taking little cat naps, and eagerly anticipating meeting my daughter.

I pushed for an hour and 15 minutes with no pain but enough pressure to guide me in my pushing and out my daughter came, screaming loudly, pink and healthy and beautiful, a mere eight hours after the whole thing started. She was 8 lbs and 6 oz, which is what my doctor thought she would weigh on my due date, so it's good she didn't wait till then. I did tear in two places, probably on the last big push that got her out. I felt amazed at myself and my body and my baby. I felt like Supermom. I felt like I could do anything, including scale Mt. Everest! It was an awesome feeling--an amazing high!

So that's my love story with the epidural, and that's why I think having a medicated birth doesn't make you less of a Supermom. Truthfully, I don't even describe my daughter's birth as medicated. Given the OMG BAD! OMG BAD! contractions I endured, I had natural childbirth! I experienced both sides, unmedicated and medicated. For me, the epidural was the way to go. I have absolutely no doubt I could've gone on without it, but I'm so glad I didn't have to.

And I'm glad that thanks to the epidural and the eight short hours, I remember labor as one of the best experiences of my life (even though I still remember the OMG BAD! very distinctly) rather than one of the worst like my mother. When she came in afterwards and was holding my baby girl, she looked at me and told me she was so happy for me, because I had had a better birth experience than she had. And I told her that I loved her so much and couldn't believe she'd had 25.5 hours of OMG BAD! OMG BAD! to endure epidural-free, plus major traumatic surgery, to have me.

However, your birth story goes--natural, medicated, c-section, we're all Supermoms here, ladies. We are--every single one of us! We have given birth, brought life forth.

But the epidural's kind of awesome, I'm just saying.

Vanity, Thy Name is Glam-O-Mommy

A major part of my feeling of self-worth lives and dies by the state of my hair.

If my hair looks good, there's almost nothing that can ruin my day. If my hair looks bad, well, the day is only going to go downhill from there.

Lately, I've been having LOTS of bad hair days. This is partially because about seven months ago I let my stylist of 17 years convince me to change the way he does my highlights. For about five years or so, I've sported chunky double blonde highlights set off with double lowlights. This makes me look very blonde, which makes me very happy. (I was born a blonde, so I'm always trying to return my hair to its natural state LOL.) He really thought I should go back to thin blonde highlights and few lowlights, with more of my regular (I refuse to call the dirty dishwater color that grows in my natural color) color coming through.

When I decided to try it his way, I instantly regretted it. Not only did I look less blonde, my roots became visible much more quickly than normal. For seven months, I've been trying to get him to switch my highlights back to the chunky double highlight/double lowlight look I love...the look that feels like me.

Then, July happened. Let's take stock of my July, shall we? Hurricane Alex hit the first week, which meant I worked extra long days at work and missed out on time with my kid, which makes me unhappy. By the time that was over, I had a horrible cold, which dragged on through the next week and caused me to miss some work. Then, just as I was getting over that, my husband had emergency surgery and was in the hospital for three days, and then was still down for the count recovering all this last week. This meant that I again missed work, putting me behind on a big project, plus I was extra stressed taking care of both my dear husband and my daughter without his help, PLUS I missed my normal highlight appointment, meaning my already scraggly, rootsy hair had to stay that way for an extra week.

So, I've felt kind of like Crap Walking all month, but especially the last two weeks. And when my parents offered to keep my daughter yesterday (hubby's not allowed to lift her for FOUR MORE WEEKS-GAH), so I could go get my hair and nails done and do a little personal pampering, I jumped at the chance! When I called my stylist to make my hair appointment, I was all, "Look, dude...I am not letting you talk me out of this again...I WANT my chunky double highlights and lowlights back! I want my MOJO back!"

Two points here:

• I said "dude" to my stylist because he is a 6"4" straight guy (strange for a stylist, I know) who has curly 80s rocker hair all the way down to his waist. I'm not even exaggerating this description. He once got mad at me when I told him I had DREAMED he had cut his hair short like Sammy Hagar did when he was in Van Halen. Last night, he was going to see the Scorpions in concert here in San Antonio. Because I've been going to him for 17 years, I can call him dude and be completely honest with him about what I want. I realized yesterday he is one of the few people I can talk to this honestly LOL, and it's very refreshing. :)
• The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "mojo" as (1) a magic spell, hex, or charm or (2) magical power. I truly believe my hair is the font of all my mojo and has magical powers. But only when the highlights are RIGHT!

So yesterday was a fabulous day for me. I got a mani/pedi for the first time in at least a month. My stylist willingly obliged me and did my highlights the way I like them, which has made me SO happy. (In his appointment book, next to my name, he had written, "Wants mojo back!" LOL) Then, I got a massage and a facial and capped off the day with dinner with all of the people I love: my sweet parents, my dear husband, and my darling daughter.

Am I vain? YES. But I was thinking about it this morning and I realized I'm a lot LESS VAIN than I used to be.

As a mom, there are lots of situations you find yourself in where you just can't take the time to care about your personal appearance or how you look to other people.

This morning, for example, I took my daughter to a different pool because our swim class was cancelled. I would've preferred to carry my daughter about in the water and practice some of our swim class activities, like back floating, kicking, going underwater briefly, etc. This could all be done in the four- to -five-feet deep section of the pool, so that my poochy mom belly and flabby thighs would be nicely covered up by the water as they are in swim class. My daughter preferred to sit in the shallow two inches of water at the entry end and splash, which meant that is exactly where I sat with her, poochy belly and flabby thighs out above the water for the world to see. :) She was happy as a clam, and I was happy she was happy. This is a far cry from the pre-baby me that only ventured in a pool to cool off, never got my hair or face wet, and inclined on a lounge chair with one leg cocked up at a precise angle to make my belly look as flat as possible LOL.

(OK, technically, I am working out twice a week to try and tighten the belly and thighs up before our Jamaica trip; however, realistically I know that I will spend very little time in Jamaica lounging on a chair under a palm tree like I did on my last visit and most of my time carrying her or chasing after her and looking crazily disheveled and wet like I did at the pool today. A girl can dream though.)

Other situations I've faced as a mom where all vanity and caring-what-other-people-think-of-me went out the window:

• Infertility treatment. Everyone and their brother got a look at my hoo-ha during this time--the first part of my journey as a  mother.
• Giving birth. Everyone and their brother got a look at my hoo-ha, I threw up twice in front of a room full of people, and continually felt stuff other people could see gushing from me for several hours. BUT I got the epidural, which made all of that go out the window and was A-MAZ-ING, and my beautiful daughter came out healthy and loudly a mere eight hours after the whole thing began. AWESOME.
• Explosive diapers. My daughter has gifted me with several of these, most memorably as we descended into the San Antonio International Airport. You know, on the descent. Where you cannot leave your seat. Where my husband and I belatedly wrapped my daughter and her RIVER of poop in her changing pad and I ran off the plane (not really, even the threat of poop doesn't stop the idiots in front of you from taking forever to get their damn suitcases out of the overhead bins) to the bemused stares of the surrounding passengers and had to inform the flight attendants to check seat 24B for poop on the way out. Where I then had to strip my daughter completely naked, wipe all the poop off of her and myself and change her into another outfit to the bemused stares of the surrounding female passengers, who had all come to the bathroom directly off of our flight and seemed to be enjoying my Poopapalooza.
• Vomit. The first time my daughter ever threw up, I tried to catch it in my hands to save the couch. Take it from me...that doesn't work. It leaves you with a couch still covered in vomit and HANDS covered in vomit...hands that need to pick up your baby who is freaked out and covered in vomit. Luckily, this was at home. I've also worn another kid's vomit on my pants back to work after feeding my daughter her bottle at school. Word of advice: identify the stealth vomiters in your baby's day school class early and do not sit near them while feeding your own baby. It's bad enough to wear your own kid's vomit...worse to wear some other kid's!
• Insane crying, part I. This has really only happened to me twice in public. Once was at my daughter's first swim class, where she cried hysterically from the beginning to the end of the lesson, all the while clinging to my neck and face and HAIR and almost exposing my boobs to the assembled parents watching their older children's lessons. I just kept going and tried to keep my boobs covered and my hair out of my eyes and now she loves swimming.
• Insane crying, part II. The other time was worse. My daughter really is generally a good traveler, explosive poopy diaper aside (that was the airlines' fault, we had experienced several flight delays, but the kind where you are on the jetway and they won't let you get up from your seat and people don't like it if you change a diaper right on the seat, so you try to wait the situation out, thinking, "We'll be there soon."). Counting each leg of a trip as its own flight, she has been on 14 flights in under two years. The explosive diaper was one bad experience. The only other, insane crying one, I also blame partially on the airlines. She and I had already had a flight delay, so we were taking off on our last flight of the day into San Antonio later at night than I'd expected. My daughter was overtired from being out of town, meeting new relatives, being spoiled by my parents who were at our destination, and napping erratically despite my best efforts to keep her on a schedule. As the plane took off and the lights were turned out for our 40-minute flight, she fell asleep, which was awesome...for 25 minutes. Then, the flight attendants abruptly turned on the lights and made an announcement, which jolted my daughter into having a night terror. This is a bout of insane crying where the baby isn't actually awake or consolable. They last 10-15 minutes and there is really nothing you can do to calm the baby down. She had had a few of these night terror episodes at home before, usually when she skipped a nap and was overtired, so I recognized that was what was happening right away. I knew nothing would console her, she just had to get through it, but I tried everything to do so anyway, all the while with her screaming, trying to climb out of her seat and up my body, and clawing at my hair. Yes, I was that parent unable to calm down their child on a plane. Yes, I got RUDE comments from people in the surrounding rows, although I got several supportive comments from parents who had been there themselves. I got a little more sympathy when a flight attendant asked me my daughter's age and I told her she was 18 months old. Because my 18-month-old was as big and TALL as many three-year-olds, so most people just thought she was being a Terrible Toddler. "She's just a baby then!" the flight attendant exclaimed, which shut some of the people up. Yes, she is indeed a baby, I said. And she's having a night terror episode because she was overtired, our flight was delayed till late, and the lights and announcement jarred her from a sound SLEEP! The capper to this episode was discovering as I finally deplaned with my finally calm baby that I had gritted my teeth so hard trying to calm her down that I had CHIPPED the top of one of my lower teeth. We met my husband at baggage claim and I promptly burst into tears. Not glam.

So there you have it. I am admittedly vain, but becoming less so all the time. I mean, I did live without nails and accepting bad hair days way beyond my pre-baby tolerance for that type of thing (ZERO TOLERANCE). This is just one of the ways my daughter is making me a better person. I'm growing. I have less time for vanity and more acceptance of imperfection. I've also become amazingly more patient, but that's a subject for another post. :)

This is what my daughter has looked like on 12 out of 14 flights.

 This is how we normally look when we travel--poop and night terrors aside.

Why Glam-O-Mommy?

If you're reading this, you're probably wondering, why Glam-O-Mommy? Conceited much?

Well, I essentially gave myself this nickname when I was pregnant with my daughter, during a conversation I was having with my husband after an OB/GYN visit. On these visits, the waiting room was usually filled with lots of moms and little ones. Some of these moms were of the sweatpants-no-makeup-hair-in-a-scrunchie variety. And I'm not knocking them...OK, I guess I am, maybe a little. And I'm sorry about that, because I'm sure they are doing the best they can. But this isn't really a knock on them so much as it's about me and who I am.

As you might expect, I'm a high maintenance gal. I'm not like Sally from When Harry Met Sally (my favorite movie of all time), who is high maintenance, but thinks she's low maintenance (the worst kind of girl in Harry's opinion). I'm high maintenance and I know it. I own it. I special-order my food in restaurants just like Sally in fact LOL. I'm a very picky eater. And my high-maintenance-ness drives my husband a little crazy sometimes.

He would love nothing better than to roll out of bed on a Saturday morning, throw on clothes, go hiking, then eat lunch in a restaurant and hit the grocery store afterwards. All without showering. Sometimes after a night where he played hockey and came home sweaty. And he does this. Me? Not so much. I need at least an hour to shower, put on makeup, and do my hair before I would ever leave the house. To do anything. Even hike. In the woods. Where no one I know would see me.

So when confronted with these sweatpants-no-makeup-hair-in-a-scrunchie moms visit after visit, my husband started teasing me that I was going to turn into one of these moms as soon as the baby came, because there was no way I would have time to do my normal, high-maintenance-ness prep before I left the house every time with the baby, right? Wishful thinking on his part. I assured him that I had no intention of changing my high-maintenance-ness when our daughter arrived on the scene, because I was going to be Glam-O-Mommy!

The title came out of nowhere and kind of cracked me up, but also in a nutshell described what I aspired to be. I wanted to be the same person I always was, just with a totally adorable kid in tow. I wanted my daughter to become part of the life I had, not overhaul my life or give it a makeunder (in the beauty sense LOL).

And lest you think I am a totally vain, spoiled person who just wanted a doll to dress in pretty clothes, that's not what I mean. Well, I do like to dress her in pretty clothes, but I wanted to have a baby that would enrich and be part of the life I had...going out to eat, traveling, being part of my activities as well as her own. I didn't want my life to go away and for me to become someone different, who didn't care about how I looked, who didn't ever go out to eat or travel places, and who dropped all of my activities.

Obviously, my life has changed somewhat since I had my daughter, I'm rarely out past 8:30, for example. I can sing the theme songs for the Wonder Pets and the Backyardigans. I know all the new Sesame Street characters (Zoe, Abby, Elmo, Rosita, Murray and his little lamb Ovelita). Girls' night out now consists of me, my daughter, and two of my girlfriends and their children ordering food in at someone's house and chatting and eating while the kids play. On the other hand, my daughter has already traveled by plane to four states and another country in her 18 months on earth, has eaten in all kinds of restaurants starting at five days old (and a dinner cruise on one vacation), and generally goes where I go. I love her so, so much! My life is so much better with her in it. (I went through an almost two-year infertility battle complete with hellish drugs, expensive tests and procedures, and rollercoaster emotions to have her, so she is extra precious to me, but that's another post.)

Anyhoo, back to Glam-O-Mommy. Just how much of a Glam-O-Mommy am I? After what I thought was my water broke (turned out to be the plug, sorry for the TMI), I called the doctor on call because it was about 12:30 a.m. She told me to come on in to the hospital and get checked out just in case (I was 10 days out from my due date). I asked her if I had to come right away or if I had a little time to take a shower (I had been on my way to bed when this happened after a long hot August day in Texas and felt grungy). She said that was fine, so I took a shower, APPLIED FRESH MAKEUP, and STYLED MY HAIR WHILE IN LABOR before going to the hospital LOL. My daughter was born eight short hours later and I looked pretty good in our first pictures together!

Have I given in and grabbed my scrunchie since giving birth? No. Much to my husband's chagrin, I still shower, put on makeup, and do my hair before I ever leave the house. Sometimes I might be blow drying my hair while sitting on the floor looking at books with my daughter or applying makeup with one hand while I hold her Minnie Mouse for her with the other, but I still get it all done. I have not gotten a shorter do since giving birth either. My hair remains long and highlighted blonde. The one concession I have made in my beauty routine is my nails. A former nail biter, I've been sporting acrylic nails for about 12 years, which got rid of the biting habit and made my hands look much nicer. Pre-baby, I got them filled every two weeks like clockwork. Now, I struggle to find time to do them that regularly, so usually they come off completely by the third week and I am nail-less for a week or so until I can get my husband to watch our daughter so I can run get them done. Not very glamorous, so I just do what I did before I got acrylics. Keep. Hands. Hidden. LOL.

I do tend to put more emphasis on what my daughter is wearing these days than what I am wearing. I feel exhausted most of the time, which isn't very glamorous, even though I am lucky to work only four days a week. I would die for a full-body massage, which I haven't had in over a year. I haven't seen a movie in a theater in two years and haven't been to a play or musical in the same amount of time. So, Glam-O-Mommy? Kind of an oxymoron.

For me though, these days nothing feels more glamorous than when I arrive at my daughter's school after working a full day, and she runs into my arms saying, "Hi Mama, hi Mama!" That makes me feel like a star.