The Birth 1 - The Plan

Right from the start I never thought it would be possible for me to get through a normal first labour of 12 hours or so. Just because I have very low stamina and my body reacts to pain by shutting down completely. But I had discussions with the hospital consultants who all persuaded me to try for a vaginal birth with an epidural when I couldn’t tolerate the pain any more. From what little information I found on the internet, notably recommendations from Dr Charles Shepherd from the ME Association, this seemed like the best strategy. The plan was that the epidural would give me pain-free time to rest during the middle phase of labour so that I would have the energy to push during the active stage at the end.

I was lucky enough to be able to get to local NCT antenatal classes with M. I wanted to know exactly what to expect at each stage of labour in order to focus on how I could pace myself and get through it. But I must say, they brought me more self-doubt and confusion than anything else! Of course the teacher was grooming us all to the holy grail of a drug-free vaginal birth. All interventions like epidurals were denounced as the slippery slope towards caesarean section. Everyone longed to avoid interventions and get by with the help of Mother Nature, a back rub from their partner, a bit of heavy groaning and maybe a TENS machine. The teacher knew nothing about ME so didn’t tailor any of her advice to my needs.

I ended up feeling inadequate. I had moments of convincing myself that maybe I, too, could be a hero and maybe my body could defy ME and manage a totally natural birth. But my lingering hunch was that it was a pipedream. On the other hand, a friend who had recently had a harrowing labour said I should consider an elective caesarean because anything was better than going through an exhausting labour and then having to have an emergency caesarean anyway, which is a common predicament. In the end I stuck to my original plan of the epidural simply because I didn’t have the confidence to make an alternative decision. I told myself if it was all going swimmingly I could always not have the epidural anyway.