Refelctions on Sawyer's Birth: Was I a Wimp?

In thinking back to how Sawyer's birth went, I've often wondered if I really could have pushed through labor to give birth at home instead of going to the hospital for the epidural. I mean, all labor is tough, right? Why could other people hack it and I couldn't?

For one, you can't really measure your pain and stack it up to someone else's. Personal experiences can't really be measured or compared. But while reading birth books, I came across some things that made me kind of look back and realize why my labor felt so difficult.

Here is what I was reading in The Christian Childbirth Handbook about the stages of labor. In early labor, you'll be dilated less than 5cm, have contractions that last 30-45 seconds and are less than 10 minutes apart. In what they call active labor, you'll be dilated between 5-8cm, will have contractions more than 60 seconds long and 5 minutes apart or less, and turn more inward to deal with the strong contractions. Transition (the period just before pushing) may be accompanied by contractions that double-peak (no rest between them) and vomiting and will usually push you to the full 10cm for pushing.

Every labor is different, so this is just a guideline, but in reading it, I realized why my labor felt so difficult. I went from wondering if I was maybe in labor with contractions only mildly stronger than the Braxton-Hicks to the description of transition. My contractions were all less than five minutes, many of them double-peaking with no breaks. I was throwing up and totally unaware of my surroundings, uncaring about modesty or anything else. Yet when my water broke on its own after twelve hours of this, I was only dilated to three.

So, my pain levels and contraction intensity matched the description here of transition, and yet according to my dilation, I was still in early labor. That made me feel a little more justified in saying that my labor was not the norm or really difficult. Part of this was probably that Saw was posterior (the back of his skull against my spine) until just before birth. Who really knows why, and I have been praying to have a labor that tracks more like the "normal" labor. But I've also been praying that if not, I can relax, give in and go along for the ride to still deliver a healthy baby at home.

Just a few more months and we'll see how it goes...