It’s a time-honored movie cliche: the pregnant woman has one or two contractions and instantly knows, “It’s time!” She and her entourage then 
blunder their way to the hospital, where she asks for the epidural, but, much to her screaming, sweaty chagrin, it’s too late for that. Three minutes of screaming and two good pushes later, and–WAAAAHHH! The baby has arrived, and everything is instantly calm and glowing and beautiful and nobody has the shakes or needs an episiotomy stitched up.
Of course, every woman who has ever been pregnant is well aware the process is much more complicated and unpredictable than that.
If you’re pregnant, or have been pregnant, you’re probably well aware of the interrogation you face almost every day. Do you know the sex? Have you picked a name? When are you due? Will you breast or bottle-feed? And then, toward the end, the daunting, Will you have an epidural?
With my son, I went eight days past my due date before my labor was induced. My labor was completely controlled, from the first contractions to my son’s first cries, and that was the way I wanted it. Many women, however, are not as fortunate and as in control. I know many whose labor and delivery experience went in the complete opposite direction they would have liked, and were physically and emotionally devastated by their experiences. I’m now entering the second trimester of my second pregnancy, and it’s starting to hit me: I’m going to have to go through labor again, and I might not have nearly the control I had with my son.
As much as I want another totally smooth, painless labor and delivery experience, I have to be ready for that cliche movie moment when the doctor says, “I’m sorry, Kristen, you’re too far along; you’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.” And likewise, I believe all women should be prepared for their birth plan to go completely awry.
There are plenty of complications over the course of labor and delivery that may make it necessary to scrap your original birth plan. Unforeseeable problems, from a breech baby, to high maternal blood pressure, to dilation and effacement further along than will allow for an epidural, can throw your original plan off, and I absolutely believe it’s essential, for your physical and emotional health, to be ready for the exact opposite outcome of your ideal series of events. If you’re dead set on a vaginal birth, emotionally prepare yourself for an emergency cesarian section. If you want to be numb from the waist down and sleep through over half of your labor (like me), be ready to be told you’re too dilated for an epidural. If your heart is set on having a certain midwife or obstetrician deliver your baby, be ready for an unfamiliar face between your knees when it comes time to push. And so on, and so forth.
However, there are plenty of steps you can take to be as prepared as possible for any situation the little one might throw your way (and if this is your first baby, get used to him or her calling the shots, because it’s not going to stop any time soon). Pack your bags with everything on the list your midwife or obstetrician gives to you (plus more pads, you can never have enough pads!). Program your OB or midwife’s number into your phone, and have a contact group set up for those who you want to keep abreast of any baby updates. If you’re a social media junkie, like me, and want to keep your FB friends updated, check on the wi-fi status of the hospital you’re going to. If you’re in an unfamiliar city at any point in the last month of your pregnancy, know where the closest hospital is. Lastly, and, I think, the most fun preparation: make sure you tour the L&D and maternity wards in your local hospital. You can usually arrange this through your practitioner.
Putting together your birth plan can be fun and exciting and terrifying all at the same time, but if events start to take a turn for what, in your mind, looks like the worst, just remember: at the end of the day, what matters the most is that little bundle of joy and poop and spit-up in your arms, and his or her health and safety throughout the process of getting him or her out of your warm, cushy womb and into this bright, wide world.
My “birth plan” was to have a vaginal birth with an epidural after I was 7-8 cm dialated. I was due January 8. I planned to use an excersize ball to breathe through the contractions. To walk the halls trying to coax baby girl out. To squat over my bed while my husband rubbed my back, just like I daydreamed my native american ancestors did.
What happened instead, and to your point about your little one calling all the shots, was my water broke at 5am on Christmas morning as I was putting the Christmas brunch ham in the oven. (side note, the wive’s tales about spicy food and sex to bring on labor ARE true – Merry Holiday Minorah Kwanza to you for that little nugget of advice!) I took a shower, packed my bag, worried about the fact I hadn’t had my pre-labor pedicure and was amazed that my water breaking wasn’t the big gush you see in the movies, but instead was a constant feeling of wetting myself and not being able to help it. I soaked through the towels and clothes I put on and was literally puddling in front of the check in counter in L&D.
I hadn’t read anything about water breaking. I has always assumed I’d go late an get induced. Because that always happens with your first. Everyone told me so. That’s what the internetz said, and it never lies. I also never imagined that with my water breaking I wouldn’t naturally start to contract.
Everything I didn’t want to have happen, DID, in fact, happen. No getting out of bed, no shower to help relax, no exercise ball. Instead there were tubes and pitocin, oxygen masks and contractions so hard I couldn’t breath, and only one anestesiologist on duty b/c of the holiday who was in an emergency c-section, and no dialation, and monitors going off, and people rushing in, 20 hours of labor which resulted in the emergency c-section I had dreaded when I stopped dialating at 9 1/2. 9 and 1/2!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, it’s great to want to control the uncontrolable. To try and plan everything down to the inth degree so your experience will be perfect and uncomplicated and beautiful. It makes us all feel better. Especially us Type-Aers. But…now 7 months in to motherhood, I’m a firm believer that I became a parent to teach me two things. Patience and flexibility. And that lesson started at labor.
My L&D experience was not the perfect, uncomplicated, beautiful experience I had dreamed about. But it was perfect and beautiful in its own rite. And the outcome…my beautiful, amazing, incredible gift from God daughter, was totally worth the fret and worry and off course-ness of her birth.
I think women set themselves up for disappointment when they don’t give themselves flexibility in their birthing plan. I have a friend who really beat herself up about not having a “natural” birth when she went against her birth plan and got an epidural after 14 hours of labor. Even though she had a beautiful, healthy baby boy, she said she felt like she failed. That is not what labor and delivery is about! She didn’t fail her son. I think it’s OK to get pain relief when you need it, and that doesn’t make you any less of a woman or a mom.
Becky has it right. Being too rigid can set yourself up for a horrible birth experience.
My first birth plan was laminated. That’s how rigid I was. Unfortunetly, I went into labor at 29 weeks, bed rest and drugs for the next month. At 33 weeks we couldn’t stop the labor anymore and I made it to 8cm before my daughter’s heart would stutter with every contraction. My all natural birth turned into a nightmare emergency C-section. A very unwelcome C-section. I was devastated by the c-section (years later in therapy I figured out that I felt violated by the emergency surgery) and Lily’s subsequent NICU stay. I felt that I had failed her at every turn.
Five years later, after discovering that I was unexpectedly pregnant, I ventured into birth plan territory again. My plan for the VBAC was written on a post it this time. “I want natural childbirth. Do not ask or offer me drugs, as I will ask if I feel that I need them. You may offer my husband drugs is he is in pain” was my entire plan. Well, my labor didn’t go as planned this time either. My water broke and 24 hours later I was dialted to .5cm. My doc gave me an extra 6 hours but I only dialated to 1cm. And there we were, faced with another unwelcome C-section. While unwelcome, it wasn’t scary because I knew there was the possibility of a repeat C. I was flexible enough in my thinking that another Cdidn’t destroy. I also got to walk to the OR instead of being rushed “ER” style and hold my son after he was born. This time around I knew what to expect, my docs and anestheiologist talked to me about what was happening and going to happen. And that made all the difference!
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