This series is about epidural delivery , my experience and the facts about epidural painless delivery. As it would be a long post I will be dividing into 3 parts , starting today with my story.
Did you scream for Epidural like I did ?
Cmon tell me the truth, what did you think about the most as your delivery due date was nearing ? I wont lie , 99% of my time went thinking about the labor pains , symptoms of active labor and obviously pain relief methods :(. To add to my relief, my relative had an epidural delivery , a painless baby birth experience . Epidural delivery !!! I fell in love with that term the moment I heard the phrase “painless” associated with it :P.
Epidural , here I come . I was all determined to have an epidural delivery. I started reading about it a lot . Google became my source , my epidural gurukul, I discussed , briefed , made notes, researched on the pros and cons of epidural , spoke to my cousins and even thought about the day of my pain-free labor. The typical filmy moment where in you receive your baby without an ounce of pain!!
My husband , in-laws and even my Amma was scared , petrified !! Chill Chill I proclaimed as I was sooo confident that I would have a safe , healthy and yes of course pain-free delivery. To add to my happiness , came the good news. In the antenatal class attended by me along with Amma , the hospital authorities gave us the khush khabri that epidural delivery is available there with well experienced anaesthetist . What more could I ask for ? But they pointed out that the anaesthetist wont be available 24*7 as they have to stretch long time during the day, but would help even in case of emergency at night. No probs , I was relieved , finally the grass was greenest for me
Finally the day arrived at around 6.30-7.00 PM contractions started for me , I started feeling uneasy. Hours passed , my condition worsened . But I was confident , why worries when epidural is there , I consoled ! I went in for my internal examinations, nurse declared ‘ Sangeetha is into active labor ‘ . ‘Active labor? Whats that ?’ I asked the head nurse. ” That means within 12 hours you would have your baby ‘ told the nurse. ‘Kewl , but another 12 hours ? Such a long wait ..Gosh ‘ . I told the nurse ” Hmm can you please arrange for epidural , I am in for it ” . ‘ Well you will start dilating and when it reaches up to 3 cm you would have your first dose then ‘. Can you imagine how happy I was !!!
I went into active labor , IVF was administered and gradually it started paining, ohhh hell lotta pain. Whenever the nurses passed by , I screamed “Nurse can you pls help by calling the anaesthetist ?”. After sometime the head nurse came to me and said ‘Sangeetha so sorry that the anaesthetist has to leave now and she wont be able to come later as you have already dilated and she wont be able to stay throughout the night till your delivery as it would be tomorrow 6 AM possibly “. All the nurses came to me as if India has lost the World Cup finals with Pakistan . I could see the sympathy for me in their eyes !!
You know how I felt , I felt taking the IVF stand and hurling at the head nurse , I prayed for an AK 47 so that I could shoot all the nurses first , anaesthetist second , followed by my husband third !!! I was so angry, sad, disappointed, cheated !! All my dreams of a painless delivery were about to remain a mere dream. My Amma’s words were floating around me ‘ Its ok Anu, a woman should give birth to a baby feeling the pain, experiencing it , please have patience ‘. It added fuel to the fire , I told her ‘ Pls take this pain with you then .. Ammma stop this gyaan na ..Ouch its paining ..Epidural pls .. Gosh’.
So the next 12 hours passed with me screaming , shouting (read : yelling) at the top of my lungs where in at regular intervals I kept pleading the nurses to pls dial in the anaesthetist. My unlimited requests turned into anger screaming ” I want epidural , Epidural please” was confined to the four walls of the labor room
Finally at 6.25 AM the next day , Anshika was born yes without any epidural administered. As I was taken to my room in the stretcher , I saw the head nurse smiling at me telling ” See an angel for you , that too without epidural, feeling the pain of motherhood “. “Oh yeah lady , just show me the anaesthetist, she won’t have to stretch for a long day again if I see her now ” I thought…
To be continued …
So did you think of epidural / painless delivery before hand ? Pls share with me …