Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jun
11
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Oh, You Don’t Want The Epidural Yet…”
“Oh, you don’t want the epidural yet, you don’t want to waste it and be left with nothing when the pain gets *really* bad.” -L&D Nurse to mother requesting an epidural.
There are 20 comments to this post.
Wait, so when someone like me requests NO drugs for pain relief, that’s a problem. But when someone requests the drugs they can’t WAIT to try to talk me into, they try to talk them out of it?
And by telling them they don’t know how much pain they are experiencing?!
AUUUGGHHH!!!
Now I realize that sometimes hospital policy is to wait until a certain stage of labor to order epidural anesthesia, but even IF that was the case here, that’s *so not* the way to communicate that info.
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This one’s mine, too – goes hand in hand with the “you’re not contracting, the monitor’s not picking anything up” post. This was 6 years ago (six years coming up this Monday!) So I’m sitting there in labor at 31 weeks but nobody believes me, they’re dead-set on keeping me pregnant for another couple of weeks, and I have no idea how much longer I can handle it so I ask for pain medicine. Nurse tries to talk me out if it, and does for a while, but I finally convince her I need something. So she says she’ll send in the anesthesiologist. Takes her sweet-@ss time about it, and in the meantime I’m in transition and puking. Someone walks in while I’m vomiting, doesn’t say anything to me, and walks out. So some more time goes by and the nurse comes back in, I ask her about the drugs, and she says “Well, he came in here but you didn’t say anything to him!” Oh I was so pissed! He didn’t say who the hell he was and I was a little indisposed at the time! By then I’m complete and ready to go, so they believe me that I’m actually in pain, and they’ve got a student trying to get an epidural in me while I’m in the delivery room (I swear, she poked me at least 15 times trying to get that damn epidural going). I was about ready to say F-it, I didn’t need it that bad, but she finally did get it in.
And people wonder why you couldn’t pay me to give birth in a hospital again 
Got one homebirth under my belt with another one coming up in August.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 11th, 2010 at 8:13 pm (Quote)
Homebirths are a lot more fun, aren’t they? 
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Heather Reply:
June 11th, 2010 at 11:48 pm (Quote)
My sympathies. For some reason, I was in transition starting at a 2, for 8 hours. Despite trying everything to be quiet and calm, I was basically screaming that whole time. Then, when they decided the baby shouldn’t remain in distress any longer (I was a 4), I got my epidural. I finally started progressing and had my baby a few hours later. It was over 23 hours long.
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Birth Unplugged Reply:
June 14th, 2010 at 11:57 am (Quote)
I’m sorry you had such a bad experience, Lisa. I’m glad it led you to seek out a different option.
Knowing, however, from your explanation on the “I don’t think those pains are contractions” post that you were 31 weeks and they didn’t believe you were really in labor makes this comment make a little more sense. But them not listening to you about what you were feeling is inexcusable.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jun 11, 2010 @ 8:18 pm (Quote)
I am not a big fan of epidurals. I do not approve of routinely medicalized birth.
However, the right to choose when (or if) she gets an epidural should be the mother’s, since she is the one having the baby – not the nurse.
Furthermore, the way the nurse is framing labour is very disempowering. What a great way to make a mother feel inadequate to cope with the “unbearable,” “impossible” experience of labour. That, and as others have mentioned, epidurals don’t just stop working once the “real” pain kicks in. It’s a continuous drip of numbing bupivicaine. It can be turned off at the mother’s request, but unless you stop the drip, it won’t run out.
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MelissaRN Reply:
June 12th, 2010 at 10:04 am (Quote)
Occasionally though, if labor is long and protracted for whatever reason (induction, OP/OT/deflexed head baby, variations in pelvic anatomy like fibroids, scar tissue from PID, whatever…(and no, I’m not talking about “pelvis too small”)) and she gets the epidural in early labor (which I can’t say I blame, any of those issues can make labor hurt like hell), the medication might not be as effective in more active labor when contractions are a lot stronger, and you can max out on the strength of the medication and the amount of booster doses. It’s not a terribly common problem but it does happen.
I hear what you’re saying though, and I hate hate hate when providers devalue the woman’s experience by saying “oh honey you ain’t seen nothin yet, you’re only one centimeter.” If the mom says she’s in pain and suffering, she’s in pain and suffering. And it’s our job to do something about that. Period. If this nurse was concerned about what I just mentioned she certainly could’ve been more sensitive in explaining her rationale for suggesting she wait on the epidural, but the choice should always always be the mom’s.
And based on the OP’s story, she would’ve been wrong anyway.
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A thought occurred to me: maybe we’ve got it wrong. Maybe it’s not a crystal ball L&D staff look into, but a crystal speculum? Isn’t that a lovely image…
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Anything to put a mom down and thwart her choices. I believe women are often treated like children in L&D. I am a mother of many children, looked up to in my house, in charge in my house. I go to the hospital to have my 7th and have to argue with the triage nurse about drinking water? Dignity in birth, c’mon people. If the mom asks for an epidural and there’s a REAL reason why she shouldn’t have one tell her the truth like an adult. Otherwise, get her what she wants.
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I had my daughter a little over 2 weeks ago and hit transition and was begging for an epi. I ended up delivering before the anesthesiologist got there. I am pretty sure my midwife and nurses knew I wouldn’t make it and they stalled a little calling him. Which now I am thankful for, because I didn’t really want one, but in the heat of the moment it hurt like hell lol.
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Lucia Reply:
June 13th, 2010 at 7:24 am (Quote)
That happened to me too. I was a homebirth transfer and showed up screaming for an epidural (labor was 25 hours long and he was OP until 9cm). They told me when I finished a bag of fluids I could get an epidural, but with the other two pregnancies I had a back pushed so I could get and epidural and a spinal (the spinal for my twin c-section). I’m very glad they stalled me and I got to have the awesome natural birth that I so hoped for.
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Pretty much EVERY epidural I’ve seen (and I’ve seen plenty) have been on a PUMP!! They don’t even do shots in the back anymore unless they’re a REALLY backwards hospital. the medicine doesn’t wear off unless someone turns the pump off….good grief
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I had it written in my file that I would try to go as long as possible without pain meds, but if I asked for them, give them to me. I was concerned about having to fight for an epi from the get-go, since I used the same CNMs my sister did and both of her sons were born natural, NOT by her choice. With the 2nd she begged for an epi, but it was 3AM and they didn’t want to wake the anesthesiologist up.
I was in labor through 3 shift rotations, and when I joked to the first midwife “get the epi ready!” she just said, completely serious, “oh, you can do it,” and walked out the door. I mentioned it to the next one, and got pretty much the same reaction. I was in the bathroom and overheard my husband asking the L&D nurse (who was an angel), “she can get an epi if she wants one, right?” and the L&D telling him of course I could. Then, when I finally asked for it, I had been at 7cm for about 10 hrs, my water was broken, and nothing was really progressing but my contractions were getting more painful. So I was lying on the bed, clenching the bed rails and panting in pain, with the 2 CNMs and the L&D all at the foot of the bed, discussing whether or not I should get an epi, talking like I wasn’t even in the room! The Tribunal finally decided I could get what I asked for (how generous of them!) and when the 1st midwife came over with the paper for me to sign, she gave me a real snooty attitude while reciting all the risks to me. I just said, “you know, I DO know how to read, and I did so quite a bit before I made this decision.” She shut up and I never saw her again.
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Add Your Comment.
Ok, while I am not an epidural advocate this just doesn’t make sense… And epidural can be redone and topped off if the mother needs it. It’s not a one shot deal
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