Hey Mama. Welcome back to parently. So today I want to talk to you about laboring at home. So, maybe you have decided to not have an epidural and I am so excited for you. The natural birth process without pain medicine is a beautiful process, that pain, that hard work is part of what really helps you connect with your newborn baby. The two of you have just gone through this hard, long journey.

And now you're on the other side of it the other side of that mountain celebrating together. So if you have decided to not have an epidural, then I'm going to talk to you about laboring at home. Going to the hospital is a big experience. There's people everywhere. They're asking you questions. You're saying Papers, you're either too cold or you're too hot, the beds uncomfortable, they're taking your vital signs.

There's a lot going on, and all of that going on, and you are trying to focus on your breathing and you're trying to focus on the contraction. So when we say we want you to stay at home to labor, and you'll be more comfortable there, we're not saying that you are actually going to be comfortable at home, staying home isn't going to take the pain of the contraction away. However, staying at home, in the comforts of your environment, whether it is quiet or whether you like music, whether it's hot or cold, whether you can go outside and walk around during your contractions. Those are comfortable things those are known to you. And with those notes, that brings peace to you. And it allows you to focus on your breathing and your contraction.

Because you don't have people around you're doing things that you don't know what they're doing, and they're not asking you questions, and so you're really able to just focus on what you need to focus on. So without having an epidural, we encourage you to stay home through your active labor process and head to the hospital in your transition phase. Now, if you've never done this before, you're thinking, well, how will I know when that is? For me? I had the same question. And I am a nurse and I'm from a medical family and I still had the question of when should I go to the hospital.

I labored at home throughout the day, and I felt the pain increasing and increasing and increasing. My husband started timing my contractions, and they were at this point, three minutes apart, and we went to the hospital by the recommendation of my mom who is a labor nurse. When I got to the hospital, I had a resident physician come in as well as a nurse and they checked my cervix. my cervix was only one centimeter dilated. And yet I was having contractions that were three minutes apart. They were growing in intensity.

And this had been going on for at least two hours. So with previous videos, you might say, Well, yeah, I would have gone into because I think that's when active labor starts. Now, when I got to the hospital, the nurse that checked my cervix, she's a very seasoned nurse. She had been there for years. And she had dealt with lots of patients that were like me, first time moms for cervix that hadn't dilated, but yet, we're having contractions. She also knew that I was Dr. Boyd's daughter.

And she also knew that I did not want to have an epidural. And so she said to me, you get to go home. And I thought, I get to go home. I don't want to go home. I want to have this baby right now. But she sent me home she said, you'll be more comfortable at home, go home labor at home and come back later.

So me and my husband got back in the car and we went home. And I was a little bit confused. And I was a little bit frustrated because I thought why are they sending me home this big He's gonna come in a minute. Well, we got home, and it was 11 o'clock pm. I stayed at home and I labored. I sat on my couch, and I breathed through the contractions while my husband was coaching me.

And it was hard. It was painful. And I wanted it to be over. But I did it at home. So I labored from 11 o'clock pm at home when they had sent me home. And I labored through the night until six in the morning, and at six in the morning, that's when I knew.

I said, Okay, this is time we got to go to the hospital and we got back in the car. And at that point, my contractions had come to the point where they weren't getting any worse. The pain was just the pain. Through the night, I could feel each contraction get a little bit more intense. And by the time it was ready to go to the hospital. I said, Okay, this is as bad as it's gonna get.

And we got in the car, and I just call myself I said okay, This is what it's going to be for the rest of the day while I continue to stay in labor until I deliver. I don't think it's going to get any worse than this. And so on our drive to the hospital, I was just talking to myself saying, okay, I can do this, I can do this. We got to the hospital, and I was admitted into labor and delivery. And the nurse checked my cervix. And at that point, I was six centimeters dilated.

And I laid in bed and I just breathed through my contractions. My nurse would come in and ask me, How was my pain? And at this point, I was saying, well, it's like a two or three, and she was shocked. She had never heard that before, I guess because I had no pain medicine, no epidural, and I was breathing through my contractions. Again, I will tell you that it was because I had come to the point where I said this is as bad as it's gonna get. And I could cope with that, because I knew with each contraction baby was getting closer and closer to delivery.

So looking back, thinking about the night that I labored and then going to the hospital and delivering, I can say that it was the right thing to labor at home. At first, I was a little bit confused and frustrated, even as a nurse, even as someone who knows to stay home, I thought, why are they sending me home? I want to be at the hospital. But I will tell you being at home was the best thing for my labor process. I was able to stay in my comfy clothes, I was able to stay warm because I chilled during labor. I was not hot, I was cold.

And so I got to stay in warm clothes at home. I got to walk around my house, I got to take a shower before I went to the hospital. These were all things that were comfortable to me. I didn't have to ask permission to get out of bed or ring a bell for a nurse to come and help me. So I will tell you being at home during my labor process up until the point that I could not do it anymore where I said this is as bad as it's gonna get and we got to go to the hospital. was the best thing for me to stay at home and labor.

So I want to encourage you, if you are not planning on having an epidural, stay home as long as you can during your labor process. Now I want to talk to the mamas that do choose to have an epidural. Whether you decide before you go into labor that you are going to have an epidural. Or if you decide in the labor process that you need an epidural, you can have an epidural at any point in your labor and delivery process. And that is up to your physician. When your physician says yes, you can be admitted and we will start an epidural.

So that's something that you need to talk to your physician about. Now, before you go into labor. Again, you can choose to labor at home for as long as you would like and then go to the hospital and they can start an epidural. But know that when you have an epidural, you will not be able to get out of bed the nurses will have you stay in bed because you are going to be numb from the waist down and with this You don't necessarily get to move around and getting the comfortable positions that you like. So that's something to think about that is one of the great benefits of having a delivery without an epidural is that we get to move around and change positions and stay at home if we like or go to the hospital and still walk around, get on an exercise ball to labor.

These are all great positions to labor in and if you have an epidural, you are not able to do that. And sometimes epidurals will increase the time of labor and delivery and so that means that you're going to possibly be in bed for even longer. And that was one of the reasons that I did not want an epidural. So for you moms that are considering it, weigh your pros and cons. Think about what you want, how you want to experience the labor and delivery process, because you might have some preferences. That's why you need to write out your pros and cons because maybe an epidural does not fit with you.

Your preferences. I personally would love to encourage you to have your labor and delivery process without pain medicine, with 80% of our population of women that are delivering having an epidural. I know that's a hard decision. Because when you go out and you talk to other women, there are not a lot of women that can encourage you to have a delivery without an epidural. But I will tell you something. I had a lot of women telling me that I couldn't do it, that I might think that I want to do it.

But when I get to that point, I'll become weak and just give in. And that was hard for me because I knew I wanted to do it. I knew I was made to deliver a baby and women all over the world for thousands of years have been doing it without an epidural. And then I met one woman who asked me about my pregnancy. And I started to explain to her about my desire to deliver my baby without an epidural with no pain relief. And she looked at me and she was about my aged and she had a little boy of her own.

And she said, Oh, honey, you can do this. She said it is the most beautiful thing. And she said, Yes, of course there is a ring of fire and it burns and it hurts. But it's not as bad as everybody makes it out to be. She said, I've heard so many horror stories about deliveries. But she said it was so beautiful and the pain just made it all the more exciting to hold your baby after the delivery.

So that was a huge encouragement to me. And then my second thing I want to encourage you with is that I watched a movie one month before I delivered. And the movie was Mamma mia two that came out this summer that I delivered. And I went to see the movie with my husband. And there is this scene when the main character is delivering her baby. She's on this island in Greece and there's nobody around.

She's living in this little farmhouse and the music's played Playing and she's laboring, and she's sweating. And she pushes and she has her delivery. And it's just so beautiful. And I walked out of the movie theater and I said to my husband, if she can do it in the middle of an island in Greece with nobody around and nobody support, then I can do it without an epidural, and an actual hospital with support. So it was kind of a funny moment for me because I thought, okay, it's just a movie. Like that's silly.

But it was such an encouragement. And that movie is one of my favorite movies now because it was such an encouragement to me in my labor and delivery process. So I will say to you, find your story, find your encouragement, have something that can help you get through your labor and delivery without an epidural without pain medicine, so that you can sweat and shed those tears of fear and pain and joy. And when you get to hold your newborn baby, you get to say, this was an amazing journey that we just did together. So that's my encouragement for you to labor at home and for you to deliver without an epidural and without pain medication.