MSE Pregnancy Club XIII

mountainlioness

Really? Did you complain? I thought nct classes were about enabling informed choices? We've only had one class so far but she seems to be sticking to this approach - no judgements.

Edit. Glam: I asked at my 28 wk appt about birth plans (which I think includes your views on pain relief) and MW said there was time to discuss that. I have my 32 wk appt this week (week early) and I guess we'll prob discuss it then or at 36 wks?

Glamazon

I'm sure this baby is trying to get at my boobies from the inside! :eek:
He keeps pushing right up under my rib cage

Glamazon

mountainlioness wrote: »

Really? Did you complain? I thought nct classes were about enabling informed choices? We've only had one class so far but she seems to be sticking to this approach - no judgements.

Edit. Glam: I asked at my 28 wk appt about birth plans (which I think includes your views on pain relief) and MW said there was time to discuss that. I have my 32 wk appt this week (week early) and I guess we'll prob discuss it then or at 36 wks?

Ah OK, thanks ML.

I'm seeing her again at 33 weeks so will ask then. I'm not averse to using anything - I'd likw to start on gas and air and just see how I get on.

I really need to research all this I think!

RIght off to chippy! (I thought someone might have talked me out of it but as they haven't I'm going!

mountainlioness

Glam : I will never talk anyone out of going to the chippy - one of life's simple pleasures, enjoy!!

I'm going for a similar approach. Hoping for a waterbirth if all stays low risk and normal, in which case gas and air only. But if things don't turn out like that I need to have a plan b (and c!)

aless02

Glam - you're asking a bunch of pregnant women to talk you out of chips? Crazy!

mountainlioness

Just wondering who I like best, hubby or chips?

newmoneysaver_2

Glam - Pain relief has only been discussed at my labour workshop this weekend, I'm 36 weeks. I have a MW appointment booked in for next Mon when I'll be 37+6, but I still have talked about a birth plan with anyone
Luckily my hospital seem to have a relaxed "anything goes" and "if that is what you want, you can have" kind of policy, which suits me. I intend, and even the MW on the course agreed, to keep an open mind. If on the day I decide I want an epidural/birth pool/G+A only, then so be it...

newmoneysaver_2

mountainlioness wrote: »

Glam : I will never talk anyone out of going to the chippy - one of life's simple pleasures, enjoy!!

I'm going for a similar approach. Hoping for a waterbirth if all stays low risk and normal, in which case gas and air only. But if things don't turn out like that I need to have a plan b (and c!)

Me too :beer:, but also my hosp are happy to use the birth as pain relief only too!

Nicki

lou66 wrote: »

One was saying all the way i am doing it all without any drugs and not long in was yelling for as much help as she could get. :rolleyes:

The thing is that every birth is different, and every women's experience of the pain of birth in general, and that birth in particular, is also very different. Which is why comments like the one that I've quoted, even if not meant unkindly, just up the pressure on women, and make some women feel that they've failed because they didn't manage the birth they had planned beforehand.

If you go over to the birth stories thread and read the stories of women who've had more than one child, you will quite often find that the same woman has managed some of her births relatively quickly and easily with just gas and air, and with others has taken every kind of pain relief going, but after the event couldn't tell you why they found one OK and one very hard going.

As for the comment about women who take the midwife's recommendation on pain relief without question as being "carp", it must be born in mind that it can be very hard to be assertive or to ask question when in labour, even if you are normally the most assertive person in the world, and even if you have read up on all the options in advance. The process of labour itself can be very disorientating, and things happen which are out of your control. My first birth was an elective c section for medical reasons, but with my second, although I had read up on all the options and been to both hospital and NCT classes and done all the breathing, and in my working life was a kick-!!! litigator who took no prisoners, when I arrived at the hospital I was told that it was a very busy night, that the hospital did not have enough midwives to 1:1 with me, and that I needed an epidural both to enable them to examine me, and because they hadn't enough staff on to support me with managing the labour if I didn't, and because there was the risk with a VBAC of an emergency c section, so would be best if epidural was in in advance. Although I wasn't coping too badly with the pain at that point, these did seem like good reasons to me at 3.00am in the morning not knowing what was ahead of me, and in an uncharacteristically passive state which lasted for the whole of the labour and birth, though in hind sight it was probably the wrong choice to have made. And that's the final thing - its OK for me to say it was in hindsight the wrong thing to do, but no other woman has the right to say it to me or about me, because they weren't there, and it wasn't their decision to make.

Sarah_Joanne

Glam enjoy your chips! I'm having fish n chips fpr tea and am looking forward to them already!