After two unmedicated labors, one induced with Cervidil at the hospital and one completely drug-free at home, I have learned key strategies to help endure the intensity of it all. Contractions are no joke. But your body’s ability to birth is innate and was blueprinted generations ago.. and you are absolutely capable of having this baby without pain meds. My hope is this information will propel you forward with courage as you journey through labor and meet your bundle of joy!
A quick look at what’s in this blog:
- How It All Started
- Educate Your Person
- Embrace the Waves
- Think HUGE
- It’s all in your Jaw
- Mindset is EVERYTHING
1. How It All Started
Our first birth…
I remember my first labor like it was yesterday. I was so naive and unprepared- casually strolling through my pregnancy in blissful ignorance, thinking I would “figure it out as it happened.”
Bad idea.
Although I had a set plan to not get an epidural or Pitocin, I hadn’t thought through much else. Breathing techniques? My body will just know what to do, right? Other drugs the hospital may throw at me? They wouldn’t do that… What if I end up with a C-Section? There’s no way that will happen!
WELL, let me tell you… that plan backfired epically. I ended up induced with Cervidil (a drug with sometimes similar effects to Pitocin), labored for 14 hours in excruciating pain, and made it to 10cm only to have me and my baby wheeled back to the OR in a flurry of just moments to cut me open and deliver my son via a crash c-section (this is where mom is put under general anesthesia).
Whoa. What just happened??
I could go on and on about why I believe I ended up in this situation. Was it the cascade of interventions I received? Was it my lack of preparation to know how to properly advocate for myself in the hospital? It was probably a mix of those things… but ultimately, it was going through the most excruciating sensations of my life that inspired me to figure out how to do it better the second time around.
Now welcoming to center stage: contractions.
If you’ve never been in labor before, it’s hard to say what your experience will be like. Some women describe contractions as pain, other women say it’s like a wave of sensations. For me personally, they feel like very intense period cramps. They start down by my lower belly. As the intensity swells, the sensation reverberates out to my extremities. It hits a “peak” of sensation where it’s strongest, and then it quickly fades away. The procession of contractions during labor are typically the longest and hardest part.
In my hospital birth, I found myself feeling completely out of control as each next and stronger contraction hit. I would brace myself as I felt one coming on. I squeezed the sides of the bed will all my strength in an attempt to withstand the pain. The sensations were more than overwhelming.
Our Second Birth…
This time around I knew I needed to actually prepare myself for the labor I had pending in my future. I read books on the topic of birth, listened to ample amounts of podcasts, saw a pelvic floor specialist, started following birth accounts on Instagram that I resonated with, and researched like crazy. I found myself both enamored and amazed as I learned about the details of what happens in our bodies during birth.
I’m convinced the location of my birth was the ultimate (though not only) reason we ended up in surgery to birth my first child. Although the list of reasons for chosing a home birth for the second birth was quite long, at the end of the day, I just really wanted to avoid another c-section. I wanted to experience the moment of birthing my child the way I was build to birth them and hear their first cry (something I didn’t get to do with the first because I was put under, as mentioned earlier).
The only problem with this plan? Whether I was going to be in the hospital or at home, I was still going to have to get through a grueling series of contractions before I could meet my baby.
There had to be a way I could withstand them without panicking and feeling out of control.
I am very happy to inform you that, although just as intense as the contractions with my first birth, our home birth contractions were manageable and so much better. I contribute that difference in experience to the strategies listed below!
2. Educate Your Person
Whoever your person is- whether your spouse, boyfriend, mother, best friend, doula- get them on the same birth page as you. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t successful at getting my husband to sit down and read through the birth books I had on our shelf. However, I was able to jot down notes and important parts and share those with him during our dinner and evening conversations. He learned a lot through these conversations, and I’m an external processor so it helped me process the information better.
Shawn knowing the key strategies I learned from these books meant when labor hit, and I didn’t have the capacity to explain to him how to help guide me, he already had the tools in his mind and could take action on his own. Some laboring information and tips will be of help to you- and some will not. Have enough birthing techniques on hand for you and your person that you can switch up to a different one during labor if the first techniques aren’t helping.
3. Embrace The Waves
I actually believe this strategy made the biggest impact on how I tolerated each contraction. If your contractions can be described as “painful” as mine were, this tip is essential.
As each contraction begins to swell, resist the urge to fight it. This sounds SO much easier than it is in practice. It will take your entire focus and will power. But you can do it.
As the peak of the sensation hit, I reminded myself to relax.
I found that if I tensed any part of my body while the contraction took over momentarily, I would lose control. The sensation would feel like too much for me to handle and I wanted to jump out of my body and run away. The result was pain down to my core as I screamed internally for someone to save me.
I’m always reminded why moms choose to receive pain medications at this point in the thick of laboring… contractions are so powerful. But I’m telling you, the contractions I gave permission to rush over me and didn’t fight? They lasted a shorter amount of time and didn’t give me an out-of-control sensation.
To my surprise, I also found the rest between contractions was much more pleasant. Instead of wallowing in self-pity of the work I had to do yet to meet our child, I was able to truly rest between with a happy and clear mind. I had peace and could tell myself, “You’re doing great. You conquered that contraction. You can handle this next one too.”
4. Think HUGE!
Ok, this one is going to get a little silly. Stick with me! It came from one of the stories in the Ina May book I recommend in my 7 Tips for a Successful Homebirth blog. Ina May was amazed by a mom who dilated SUPER quickly. She explains that her strategy was to quite literally, think about being HUGE! She says she pictured her cervix opening up super wide to allow her baby to move down and through.
This is a no judgement zone, right? I’m sure it sounded a little ridiculous in person, but I would actually say this out loud during a contraction. I would softly chant through my breathwork, “Get huge. Get huge.” and picture my cervix widening with each rush. Did it help my cervix open up faster? I like to think it did! But I truly don’t have any way to prove this. I can say though, it helped with my focus immensely, and your focus is what drives your ability to handle each contraction.
5. It’s All in Your Jaw
This strategy also comes from the Ina May book (check out the link in the previous bullet point). Ina May describes something called the Sphincter Law. Here’s the gist: your cervix a sphincter. It’s a muscle that opens and closes to allow things (in this case your baby) to pass through. In order to have your baby, as you know, your cervix has to open to 10 whole centimeters. There’s a connection between your jaw muscle and your cervix muscle. One of the ways to help open your cervix and speed up the process is to relax your jaw muscle while laboring.
In addition to that, relaxing your jaw muscle helps to release tension from your whole body. This is essential to withstanding contractions, as I mention in the previous bullet point.
6. Mindset is EVERYTHING
Food is important, right? We need food to survive. Additionally, good food is important. You can eat mediocre food and survive… but you’ll need to feed yourself nourishing food if you want to thrive.
Your mind functions the same way as your body. It is crucial to feed your mind healthy, truthful words, especially as you head into the birth of your baby.
It’s human nature to protect ourselves. In an event like birth, where it’s actually our own bodies inflicting that intensity upon us, it’s even more of a temptation to coddle yourself. Here’s something key you need to tell yourself as you go through this experience:
I am not a victim of this birth.
Do you feel the “woe is me” attitude leave as you say that to yourself? The struggles, afflictions, and trials of this life don’t make us less… we are not victims of them. We rise up and become stronger because of them.
Think about all the generations of women who have gone before us and done this successfully… they made it. Their babies came into this world and they survived.
And so will we.
Your body is incredible and you, as a woman, have been blessed with the most beautiful gift– to grow, birth, and nourish the next generation of people. It is a blessing to do this, not a curse. Remember that, and hold tight to what’s true during your labor. Write these things down and hang them up on your mirror to view every morning. Say them out loud. Talk about them with people who believe the same thing. These words are power to endure a long, difficult labor. Tap into that.
In Conclusion…
I am STOKED for your birth. Holding this baby in your arms is the end goal, but you don’t have to feel like you’re suffering to get there. Use these strategies to strengthen you with courage and power as you enter the hard work of labor- and then jump back onto this blog and let me know how it went! Blessings to you and your beautiful family.
Sincerely,
Jeannie