**second part of long post**

Nothing came close to what happened to my body in birthing.  I went in 
pretty sure it was going to be fine, for I knew I could cope with, and 
recover from, immense pain.  I had a space in my head I could go to, to 
distance myself from what was happening.  It was what I did when the ear 
wick was pushed through, and I actually told people I'd have no problem 
with the birth, as having endured that, nothing could top it.  I thought 
I'd just pop in and revisit that peaceful space if it got too bad - 
after all I was 42, first birth, morbidly obese and already crippled 
with pain by SPD - it may hurt a lot.  There were huge reasons for not 
undergoing an epidural, not least of all was my position as sole carer 
for my husband and there being no other support at all for us - I could 
not afford a spinal injury from bad aftercare just as I could not afford 
a caesarian: no one was going to be taking care of this baby but me.  
The hospital had been kind enough to order from another unit, an 
electric 'superbed' that would carry my weight and move me around as 
required should I end in in surgery (as everyone predicted I would.)  
I'd been on oral pethidine for the last week until the induction for 
pre-eclampsia, and on IV pethidine whilst in the hospital.

Therefore, I would argue, that I was in a supremely good state to give 
birth without pain medication.  And, indeed, I coped with the ravening 
beast that fell upon my body and ate me from inside out, for several 
hours.  The midwives and I were of one: we knew the risks to me of an 
epidural, and I could not have received better support at not having 
one.  After 14 hours, I was at 3 cms.  I was also not in the room.  I 
had left to a dark and nasty place that was not letting me go.  I do 
remember, in my screaming thinking about two things: I was only ever 
screaming on an out breath, so my baby should be fine, and at last, I 
could scream.  I was _allowed_ to scream in child birth.  This second 
feeling of relief was short lived as the midwives piled in on me to stop 
me screaming.   They did it nicely, and with great concern, I was 
screaming far too long on said outbreath, and they were worried.  But I 
felt robbed .  I also, I now realise as I type this, fell more deeply 
into the pain after the release of screaming was taken from me.

I came to with my birth partner standing over me, me sitting on the end 
of my bed, wondering why my back was freezing.  She and the midwives had 
watched a reluctant anaesthetist try and insert three tubes into me, one 
after the other, during contractions.  Whenever the contraction came, I 
moved slightly up off the bed.  He was shouting angrily at me and 
telling me I was going to put myself in a wheelchair if I didn't stop 
moving.  He had been at the point of calling to have me removed to 
theatre, when my birth partner, bless her, leaned into me and brought me 
back into myself by the power of her will.  She locked eye to eye with 
me and called me back into myself.  I sat, in silence, and did not move 
a muscle through two contractions, whilst the baboon behind me finally 
got the tube in.  I was stone, chanting that my baby needed a vaginal 
delivery, and I would not move.

The previous guy had been a wonder - I hate shift changes!  As the agony 
receded, I became aware of a huge tension in the room, and how utterly 
furious the midwives were by how I'd been treated as he'd shouted at me 
not to move during a contraction - by his trying to insert the tube 
during a contraction.  They refused to make eye contact with him, and I 
could hear their scribbled notes practically tearing the paper as they 
wrote.  Steam poured from their ears and I fancied I could see blood 
trickling down from their pursed lips as they bit their tongues.  They 
knew I was not the shy and retiring type and they were wondering where 
this would lead.   He was bristling up for a fight.  I reduced him to 
slime by thanking him quietly for doing all the could for me, and how 
grateful I was, and he dribbled away under the door.  He'd been 
terrified of  putting in a tube to someone as overweight as me, even 
though my back hasn't got much fat on it: he'd been furious his senior 
had said I could have one, and apoplectic I'd only requested one after 
the senior was off duty.  I'm pretty sure he felt I was a pathetic 
wretch for making so much drama about some pain.

I still needed air and gas, even on top of the epidural, as the pain in 
my cervix, which was what had thrown me utterly I suppose, was so sharp 
and tearing and utterly about damage and fear and shredding, was still 
too strong.  My lead midwife sat with me for several minutes, adjusting 
the drip patiently up and up, until I was no longer in pain.  I never 
lost feeling in my legs.  This is an important point, for they've found 
with patients who claim to be in more pain that they 'should' be, that 
even seeming overdoses of things like morphine, do not not overwhelm the 
system if the person really is in a lot of pain.  And also, most self 
medicating patients, stop the medication at a pain level below that 
chosen by the 'expert' - where they can still 'feel'.

Cathy talked about breastfeeding being healing - and I cannot agree with 
her more.  For I have connected with my body in a way I never ever had, 
my entire life, through breastfeeding.  But, actually, that journey 
began there and then, in the birthing room.  For as I sat, feeling my 
baby push through me, out and onwards cm by cm, and wondering if the 
'ring of fire' would hurt under this amount of pain relief (it did!) I 
heard my body talk to me clearly.  It was whispering to me, as I sat and 
chatted and relaxed and dozed.  It was saying "Please don't ask this of 
me.  I cannot do this.  I cannot make it.  Please don't ask this of 
me."  So I sat, free to do so, freed from the agony that had stopped me 
thinking, stopped me being in charge on my body, and told my body it 
could do it, and it would, and Hugh was born without complication and 
latched on and was suckling before the cord died, and I had no stitches 
or any other intervention.  When my OB arrived in the morning, she was 
sleepy and tired, as she'd spent the night literally waiting for the 
phonecall to come in, and had actually booked the theatre for me before 
she left for home.  She was shocked to her core, but incredibly 
pleased.  (That's for all you that 'know' which Mums will make it, and 
which ones won't! ;-)

Now, I said this was about breastfeeding, and it is.  But I don't have a 
'pain' story about breastfeeding, so the birth one has do stand in for 
that.  And the detail is there, because we often talk about walking a 
mile in other people's shoes here.  Sometimes we talk about always doing 
it, sometimes we get annoyed with others doing it more than we think the 
mother 'deserved'.  We get so fed up with women giving up at the pain of 
a hang nail, we make sweeping generalisations about not needing pain 
relief, or about a bit of back bone being all that's required.

My point is, that when it comes to pain, no one can walk a mile in some 
people's shoes.  Well, at least, not without this amount of detailed and 
powerful writing!  Sure, there are loads of women, dis-empowered, have 
been taught helplessness at their mother's knee, listened to the horror 
stories etc etc etc, who do run away and hide at the first 'ouch' of a 
latch.  I accept that utterly.  (Just as I see my son fall off a 
climbing frame with a bruising bang and pull himself up and go back on 
again, whilst I see more precious flowers bump one finger, and scream 
the place down.)

But there are also strong, determined, self-aware, bold brassy and 
self-empowered woman who say "You know, this hurts really badly..." and 
I wonder how often they are listened to?  In the move to re-assert the 
naturalness of birth and breastfeeding, and the power of woman, I fear 
we are often dis-enfranchising the most powerful of us.

I've been involved this week in online support of a young first time 
Mum.  Baby is 13 days old, and her nipples were 'ripped up' in the first 
few days.  She's had LLL latch advice in, latch has been corrected, but 
positioning is poor.  Baby is gaining well.  She came online to say 
"This is excruciating.  I'm considering pumping it's so bad.  My nipples 
are still being ripped up. Tell me it's okay?"  Loads of advice about 
carrying on lathering in Lansinoh, working on positioning, keeping on in 
there.  I mention she check for tongue tie and Reynaud's.  All hell 
breaks loose - how can I be so negative?  Can't I just accept it can 
hurt, and tell her to keep going?  Women don't need to be told there is 
something wrong for a bit of normal pain?

Mums with tongue tied babies come in, and ask about nipple shape.  
Nipple is out of shape after pull off.  More disagreement - look it's 
only a bit of pain, everyone can get through it, let's not put bad 
thoughts into women's heads: no one needs to be told there might be 
something _wrong_.  They just need to be told it will get better, and to 
keep on with it.

Hmmm....?  "Excruciating"  "Torn"  "Ripped Up"

Sometimes, ladies and gents, if we say it hurts too much - it does.  Not 
only can you not actually walk a mile in most people's shoes when it 
comes to pain  - you have no way of knowing how not being listened to 
will effect the mother.  I have friends who kept on in there, in total 
agony, until it 'magically' lifted - usually at about six weeks.  One 
friend, on asking the midwife for help for the pain, was advised to bite 
down on a stick.  Which she did, every feed, for six long weeks.  She'd 
cry at the thought of a feed, pull herself together, wipe the tears 
away, put the stick in her mouth and then pick up the baby and try not 
to scream out loud.  She had screamed a few times, and she was terrified 
she was scarring the baby mentally.  She had air and gas for birthing, 
and states that breastfeeding hurt more than giving birth - lots more.  
She is incredibly compassionate about women who give up from nipple 
pain.  She listens, and absorbs and sometimes, when she talks, I can see 
healing happening around her.  She never actually talks about her own 
pain to them, but how she listens to other mothers describe how nipple 
pain defeated them... they don't feel judged.  I wish I could bottle 
whatever it is she does, for I know it's usually such mothers that are 
so violently vocal about formula versus breastfeeding.

For myself, my birthing pain was so intense, that even now, 3 years 
later, I experience actual physical sensation in my cervix from even 
thinking about it.  It's reduced down to a tightness, and an unpleasant 
ache, but for over a year it was so intense, it was like a knife being 
stuck into me, deep between my legs.  I presume there was scar tissue on 
my cervix, from the years of sexual abuse... but who knows?  All I know, 
for absolutely certain, is if I'd been born a hundred years ago, and had 
to do that birth without an epidural, I don't think my baby would have 
been breastfed, which would probably mean he'd have died from a murder 
bottle, as I'm working class.  I think there is a strong risk I'd have 
rejected mothering him.  I think saying I wouldn't have survived the 
birth physically is a bit of a long shot - after all, there was nothing 
'wrong' with the birth - it was only pain.   But emotionally, I may not 
have made it through enough to establish effective breastfeeding.  So 
maybe I'm saying if he'd been born, from that birth, prior to epidural 
but post-formula, he'd have made it - at a distance.

But I've only just wondered now, if he'd have made it on breastfeeding, 
if I'd have significant nipple pain.... for since the birth, my ability 
to cope with pain has been shot, in precisely the way my husband's is if 
he stubs his toe badly.  It is returning, my pain threshold, but it is a 
shadow of what it was.  It means I can listen to him better, when he's 
moaning about a stubbed toe: I understand what's happened: I understand 
the stubbed toe was the straw that broke the back of the control.

As it was, thanks to the epidural, I'd spent several hours relaxing, 
dosing and regaining contact with my baby, and was in a fit state to 
ward everyone off over the first few hours (in fact, I marched out of 
the hospital at 2am, as soon as I could walk... but that's another 
story!).  Feeding him did hurt for the first coupla of weeks, but it was 
a stretchy kind of 'good' pain.  It reassured me, as I knew he was 
latched on properly when I felt it.

When the research came out last year about epidurals reducing the chance 
of effective breastfeeding, I pondered long and hard on this.  As I, 
personally, felt it had helped me to breastfeed, not hinder me.  So I 
asked in the community I post into most often, and off about 300 women 
who replied, most of whom were exclusively breastfeeding, 62% stated 
they felt their epidural had helped them establish breastfeeding.  But 
only 35% said they'd have one for the second birth, which I felt was 
very encouraging.  Many said now they knew their bodies could cope, 
they'd hope not to have another one.  This so contradicted the evidence, 
I wondered if we need not to look at those who'd given up on 
breastfeeding, and correlated it to the epidural, but those who'd made 
comment about extreme pain, and then succeeded in breastfeeding.  Which 
brings us back to the point... mentioning extreme pain.

Our wonderful Listmother, Rachel Myr, said in this thread, that 5% of 
women require caeserians.  I'd really like it if we had a figure, just 
as low, but realistic, for how many mothers require serious pain 
relief.  For I'm telling you - no matter how you feel about crunchie 
birth and how natural the process is and how we don't need hospitals and 
interventions - some of us need pain relief.  Just like when we say we 
have serious nipple pain - we mean it.

And it's not because we are weak.  :-)   Neither is it because we've 
been duped by culture.

Finally, I hope the wonderful Cathy knows that I spring boarded off her 
excellent post, and that nothing I've said about other people commenting 
on weakness and pain in this one, is to suggest she said that, or meant 
it in the slightest.  I agree utterly with every comment she made - some 
people do give up on a hang nail and whinge if they stub their toe - and 
they have no cause too! And if any of us take mothers complaining of 
nipple pain seriously - it's Cathy!  :-)

Apologies to those who feel this is too off-topic.  I personally think 
it is about breastfeeding - there is a point where you can't separate 
birth experience from effective breastfeeding.  And, like I said, I 
don't have any pain stories about nipples!  :-)

Morgan Gallagher

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