How do you do that without pain medication?

I get asked a lot how it's possible to have a baby, and not accept, nor want, pain medication. First of all, real easy. Read what's in that stuff. You won't want it within 10 feet of you, far less your baby. More importantly, though, pain itself is an interesting construct of the mind, and one that can just as easily be deconstructed to some degree.

When I think of pain, I think of a bad feeling that is useless, like what it feels like to break a bone, or have a headache. This pain is just there. It's wrong. It indicates a problem. Most of all, it accomplishes absolutely nothing. The sensations that come with labor and birth are not like that in the least. It is not wrong. In fact, it's very right. It's a great indicator that your body works properly, so it's actually an indicator that there is no problem. Most importantly, with each twinge and wave, a lot of work is being accomplished. Labor is not actually pain. It's just really hard work. Knowing this (not just saying it and thinking "hmm.... that makes sense", but REALLY knowing it) will help deconstruct the idea that western society has given women, that labor is painful. If you stop equating labor with pain, you won't perceive it as painful in the first place, and you'll cope very well with whatever comes of it.

Another thing that people often overlook in our society of 99% hospital births is that surroundings really do make a difference. I honestly believe that our country's 80% epidural rate would be cut in more than a quarter if people would just get out of the hospitals. Artificial surroundings are scary. They create all kinds of nasty hormonal cocktails in our brains, and we feel pain more intensely. This is the beginning of a vicious cycle that often culminates in a medicated birth, and subsequent medicated births, because the mom in question often comes to equate unmedicated birth as "suffering needlessly". In reality, this is due nearly entirely to the surroundings, and what comes of being in that environment.

People often ask how I got through my entire labor at home, unassisted, with Orren. They think I'm just trying to be a hero when I tell them it was easy, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. It really was easy. It wasn't painful. It was intense toward the end, and that's when we finally called our midwife and headed into the birth center (and when I decided that any others we had would be homebirths!) I can honestly say the only time that labor was even remotely painful was in the car. A car is an unnatural place to labor, and the position one is forced to be in while in a car, is extremely abnormal under those circumstances. When I was at home, it was easy because I just did whatever I wanted to do. When I wanted to walk, I walked. When I wanted to kneel, I knelt. When I wanted to take a bath, I took a bath. When I wanted to eat, I ate. What came of this was a nice fast labor that I would not classify as even remotely painful. Had I done what the American medical establishment wants women to do, and checked myself into a hospital when the contractions were five minutes apart, there is no way I would be able to say the same. The monitoring, the IV's, the artificial surroundings.... It messes with your head, and it's distracting. When you're on your own turf, you can deal with stuff better because you've got everything you need, and it's just a more comfortable place to be than anywhere else in the world. Doesn't it make sense that home would be the easiest, most painless, place to have a baby?

The bottom line is that when you remove societal programming from the equation, really evict it from your mind once and for all, and just do what you innately know how to do, you'll probably find that you won't want pain medication either.