The Best Laid Plans

Posted by Emily on January 5, 2010

As I have alluded and linked to, I fell on my bum last week- hard. I’m still avoiding sitting with all my might. Also, getting up from a sitting position is pure torture, if for some reason I have to do that a few times in a row, I start to believe I’m dying a slow death.

In what’s going to seem unrelated, this made me afraid to go in for my OB appointment today. I know that many drs aren’t willing to mess with it, and if you have a banged up tailbone, they want you to have a c-section, no questions asked. I voiced this fear to my father, who knows my doctor because he has on and off been my mother’s doctor, and my dad said, “Dr. _______ won’t do that to you, he might recommend that you have an epidural though.”

I’ve been planning on going natural, as my dr well knows. He’s been very supportive and has talked about why it’s better for them (the drs), me, and the baby, to do so. Such taboo things to say these days. Which actually drives me crazy. If I hear one more woman throw around the words, “no increased risk,” I think I’ll have a hernia on top of everything else. I don’t care if you plan to have an epidural, but for goodness sake, please at least know what you’re talking about. Maybe not of death, but there’s all sorts of “increased risk,” that people have just started thinking of as a normal delivery.

Off the soap box.

So at the end of every appointment he usually says, “the plan is still to go natural, right?”

All of the sudden today it changed to, “so the plan is to go natural while keeping our epidural options open, right?”

And, of course, I agreed with him, because if it’s banged up bad enough that I still feel like this next month (please don’t be, please don’t be, please don’t be)… I’m just not sure I see any other reasonable way to go.

I’m disappointed that such an outcome is so real, but determined to feel as I’ve always said I would if something unexpected comes up; simply grateful for modern medicine.

But if you’re interested in popping your bubble, here’s a pretty good list of epidural side effects. Click Here Personally, I’d rather go through the pain upfront for myself instead of doing something that will slow down recovery, and 10%-15% is high for fetal distress. This is not my number one way to go. ( forceps, episiotomies, c-sections! Nooooo. Must Not Think About It)

Being grateful over here!