No pain medication - tell me your stories?

[Futterby]

I'm planning on a natural labour with my first baby (due in November) and I was wondering if anyone had anything positive to tell me about it? Really worrying about the pain, although I have a really high pain threshold. Has anyone been in a similar situation? If I'm going to be anything like my mum and gran, I'll be in labour for days so I don't know if I'll be able to endure it.

TIA :)

I had no pain relief with either birth. My second labour was quick and easy. I really didn't feel I needed it.

My first birth was not quick and easy and the only reason I didn't have pain relief was because the epidural failed.

My advice would be go with the flow and see how you feel. IMO some births are easier and hurt less than others - my 2 were certainly extremely different.

I didn't have any pain medication for either of my DCs. There was local anaesthetic for the delivery both times because of the episiotomies, but otherwise nothing.

Labour with DS1 was 50 hours, back to back for part of it (he turned partway through), but because it was so long and slow I think the contractions were always fairly mild, and I didn't ever really feel like I needed anything so long as I was up on my feet. Lying down was really painful, but standing up was just crampy and tiring. The main problem was I couldn't really sleep at all because I had to be standing up. But the only thing I found utterly excruciating, scream-and-bite-things painful was the first internal exam from the midwife - if I could have had an epidural just for that I would have. Internal exams with DS2 weren't like that at all, so it might have been the midwife being a bit cack-handed. It was a homebirth transferred to hospital for failure to progress and DS1 was born by ventouse in the end.

DS2 was born recently at home after a 5 hour labour, again with no medication, and staying on my feet and just riding the contractions out worked fine for me. It was faster and more intense, but both times it was never screaming pain, just serious effort.

So yeah, for some women it isn't that bad. I don't know whether the fact that I was labouring at home both times and was mobile and on my feet all the time made a difference to how much pain I felt or not, but mostly I think I was just lucky.