No offense to any hippies who may read this

People talk about natural childbirth as if it were a holy sacred thing. That one must be unfeeling and evil to want pain killers for the process. Your baby will be sluggish, it will take longer, you'll damage his brain, etc.
I have now done it both ways and I just want to tell those hippies to shut the hell up.

When I had Justin I wanted drugs. I said the day I found out I was pregnant that I wanted drugs. Unfortunately with it being Rolla, there only being one anesthetist and my doctor being a jerkwad, I never got any. So I did it naturally. Yes, I lived. Yes, Justin was healthy. Dear god in heaven did it hurt though. I was hallucinating the pain was so intense.
When we got to the hospital we tried breathing, and trivia (which worked just as well as the breathing) and when it got to the point that the pain felt like it was breaking my back I started to inquire about my drugs. Then I started to request my drugs more adamantly. Then I cried. I got my drugs. First I got something called stadol, which is injected through the I.V. It made me very high. I could still feel the contractions, but they were much more tolerable. Once that started to wear off my best friend the anesthesiologist showed up.

I had no idea.
I had absolutely no idea. I thought that an epidural would do what the stadol did, I would still be in pain, but not bone crushing agonizing pain.
There is no pain. I could feel a couple of them, but mostly just to know they were occurring. When it came time to push I was still able to recognize that feeling clearly and I had no trouble at all pushing.

By no trouble, I am saying that I literally pushed five times and he was out.
I love epidurals. I love 'em, I love 'em, I want to have their children. So to speak. This is an amazing thing. It in no way complicated things (though I do know that can happen), it slowed nothing down, and it made the experience something I am not trying to actively block out.

If you are going to have a baby don't listen to the hippies. Take the drugs. You will thank me for it.

In other news, today I got the most sleep I've had since the baby was born. I missed three quarters of "Lost" but it was so worth it. My parents have been a godsend.

TOMORROW: Adventures in jaundice, or: why my baby is glowing blue.