The Secret Reason I Didn’t Have an Epidural

I recently gave birth without the use of any pain medications for the second time. While recovering and getting to know my new son, Wolf, I’ve been reading over the journal entries I penned right after Felix’s birth nearly four years ago. Here is that birth story, with an admission of the real reason I went drug-free.

I am a delicate flower, otherwise known as a massive wimp with no tolerance for discomfort. The common cold inevitably knocks me out for days, I need nine hours of sleep to feel optimal, and I am so unathletic that I literally trained for months to run a 5K. 

So, on the one hand, my decision to have an epidural-free birth was wildly out of character. On the other hand, I was raised in Vermont, where most of my friends were born at home. There was some part of me—probably the same part that doesn’t shave my legs—with whom the idea of a natural birth resonated deeply. I was too terrified to do the whole thing at home, so I went the hospital route, but with a doula—a woman named Amy who we paid nearly $5,000 to fight off the anesthesiologist.

As my birth plan dictated, we did the first part of the labor at home, where I squatted in various rooms of my apartment and made noises that can only be described as lowing (the exact noises, incidentally, that I SWORE Iʼd never make). Now, two weeks later, Iʼve already managed to forget what, exactly, contractions feel like. (My pregnant girlfriend keeps asking me, “Are they like especially bad period cramps?” No. “Diarrhea pains?” No. “A horrible side stitch while exercising?” Certainly not.) All I can say is that I remember thinking it must have been what William Wallace felt like in the disembowelment scene of Braveheart.

After about seven hours of this (during which I spent pretty much the entire time asking Amy, “How many more contractions do you think Iʼll have?”), I decided I simply couldnʼt take it any more and that I needed the drugs. So we walked to the hospital (itʼs only about 6 blocks away, and anyone who has been in labor can attest that sitting in a cab would be unendurable).

Upon arrival, I was told that I was fully dilated, and Amy convinced me that I didnʼt need the epidural. But I remained tempted. Even as the baby was crowning, I asked, “What would the epidural do for me now?” Shortly after this, when he was supposedly still crowning but had failed to emerge, I switched tactics and demanded a C-section, which I was also denied.

In any event, I officially gave birth without drugs, and my baby was 9 pounds, 4 ounces. Most people probably feel like they did their kids a huge favor by bringing them into the world epidural-free. And yes, I am proud that Felix, the absolute love of my life, had as clean and natural a beginning as I could have given him. But in my heart of hearts, do I REALLY believe the epidural would have caused him harm? No. What I do love is the look on peopleʼs faces when I tell them that I—the same girl who walks in heels for a maximum of three blocks before complaining of blisters and hailing a cab—pushed a 9-plus-pounder and felt every second of it.

Stay sane,