My wife went into the kind of labor that makes husbands grab the suitcase and pull the car up to the front door at 9:30 p.m. and we drove to the hospital. At 1:30 a.m., I had a son in my arms. She was a trooper, and not to minimize the ordeal, but her labor and delivery was not nearly as traumatic as the horror stories her "friends" were telling her while she was pregnant.fickman wrote:Yep. My wife said that natural, epidural, c-section. . . there's no escaping the Genesis 3 curse. . . you can simply pick what flavor it comes in.mamabearCali wrote:I have done both epidural and au natural......the second time I did the epidural it nearly killed me and then gave me the worst migraine of my life for two weeks straight. After that I decided that it would be better to deal with the pain than to possibly die. Epidurals are great......if your body handles it well. If you are not actively prepared to endure natural childbirth then by all means get the epidural.fickman wrote:My wife agreed. . . she added a couple of observations:mamabearCali wrote:Not to diminish childbirth (I've done it four times myself) but we women endure the pain to have the baby in arms at the end of the story. We are (in general) designed to give birth. The cramps part of labor isn't the really bad part anyway (IME)....that comes with the crowning the delivery and the repair work after.... And that is all I really want to say about that.
The video was very funny.....I would not ask my husband to do that, just silly to hurt when you don't have to.
- They didn't handle it any worse than women. They really looked like most natural births we've been a part of. They were more animated than the epidural births we've seen, but that's to be expected.
- The birth part can't be simulated, but as you said, it's amazing to watch a women go from sounding and looking like she's in a war zone to looking like she's been at the spa all day. . . as soon as they put that baby in her arms. The tranquility in our experience has been profound and Providential.
We have four kiddos as do another couple that are very close to us. His wife did the epidural each time, and my buddy basically ate Whataburger until it was time to hold the baby. My wife did all four naturally (even once while being induced), and I got to do about 12 hours of squats, curls, rows, and a bunch of other exercises along with my wife. I'm not saying his wife's experience was a walk in the park, but there does seem to be a huge differentiation in the roles of the supporting cast.
At the end of each day, it was more than worth it!
Why do women do that to one another?
I have had my hands inside a living (barely) breathing human being's chest cavity before. I have clamped bleeders for a doctor so he could see the suture field better. I have debrided tissue with scissors. I am NOT normally bothered by these things. But when her Ob-Gyn offered me the scissors and asked if I wanted to cut the umbilical cord, I politely declined. I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate and pass out.
Just sayin'......