I drank the Kool-Aid. It's true. I took a Bradley class, did meditation at night before going to bed, bought a birth ball, did 500 Kegels a day, read all the books, decided to give birth at a Birth Center, switched from my OBGYN/midwife practice to a solely midwife practice that does "group care," etc. etc.
When the time came, I did the whole thing without a stitch of pain meds. From the contractions starting around midnight to the pushing around 10 a.m. to the birth at 3 p.m. to the stitches around 3:30 p.m. Not even a local anesthetic for the stitches or Tylenol that evening.
Looking back on it now, I realized I was pretty hopped on on natural stuff. We came home from the birth center about 4.5 hours after I delivered JAB, ate some delicious Chinese food and all passed out in the bed for a full night sleep. I remember walking a little funny for a few days and freezing sanitary pads and sitting on pillows but I don't remember much more than that.
