What My Failed Epidural Taught Me About Strength

Pain doesn’t have to make you feel weak

I’ve given birth four times. And each time, I asked for an epidural.

I’ve always been very pro drugs when it comes to enduring labor and giving birth. Laughing gas to power through contractions? Absolutely. An epidural to help me withstand the pain of delivery? I insist. If they had offered me a cocktail of LSD and magic mushrooms to make the whole experience more pleasant, I would have probably said yes.

Taking advantage of pain killers just makes sense to me. When I had my wisdom teeth taken out, I asked if I could be put under instead of being given a local anesthetic. I don’t mess around. So, why would I deny myself an epidural when there’s an anesthesiologist on call for just this sort of thing?

It’s also not lost on me that denying anesthetic for a painful experience is only ever a question for mothers. I have never heard of a man shooing away the anesthesiologist before undergoing surgery.

(Admittedly, I had one friend who asked a dentist to extract his tooth without numbing his gums first, but he was kind of an odd duck.)

Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that asking for pain relief isn’t the same as getting pain relief.

My First Born Was Almost an Only Child

My first pregnancy resulted in complications. After seeing some frightening readings when taking my blood pressure, I was diagnosed with preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome (Preeclampsia’s asshole cousin).

These complications, I would later learn, weren’t a fluke. Every single time I got pregnant, they arose again, and all of my pregnancies were deemed high risk (and with good reason — these conditions can be fatal if left unmonitored).

For my safety, I had to give birth early. Instead of waiting for my body to tell me it was time to deliver, I had my labor induced and my delivery date scheduled. On the appointed date, I showed up the hospital, they fed my body pitocin intravenously, and I waited for my body to be ready.

I knew going into it that pitocin-induced labor is more painful than unassisted labor. But I didn’t understand just how painful that would be. Getting a tattoo on the back of my neck hurt. This was absolutely fucking unbearable.

I’ve never experienced that much pain in my life. For the first time, I understood what people meant when they say they want to crawl out of their skin. I wanted to die — anything to end the pain.

Well, what I really wanted were drugs — as many as they could safely and legally administer. The anesthesiologist, however, had to deal with some emergency cases and wasn’t available for hours. Once he arrived, it should have been too late for an epidural, but the nurse took pity on me and deliberately waited until the drugs were administered to check how far along I was. My cervix had already dilated 10 centimeters — it would have been against policy to administer pain relief.

That nurse had my back. She was an angel.

The epidural helped — a lot. The pain subsided. I gave birth and became a mother.

But the trauma I experienced when my body was gripped with pain lingered long after I left the hospital. Instead of feeling relieved and recovered, I felt weak and pathetic.

I had trouble bonding with my son. I loved him. I enjoyed holding him. But that painful experience tinged everything with a bit of sadness.

But even more difficult still is that I was sure it ruined my life plans. I had always wanted kids and lots of them. Depending on when you asked me, I would say I wanted anywhere between 6 and 9. I’m not a fundamentalist or anything — I just have a lot of love to give.

But I wasn’t ready to experience that kind of pain again, and I was convinced I would never have any more children. And for quite a while, I mourned the future I lost. The future where I was surrounded by young children. The future where I had to attend elementary school events while holding a baby on my hip.

I had always thought of pain as transient. You feel it, it hurts, it sucks, and then you sort of move on and kind of forget about it. Until I experienced it, I had no idea how much it could seep into the fabric of your body and change the way you live.

Giving Birth While Hopped Up on Drugs

Eventually, thanks to the passage of time, some determination, and a bit of forgetting, I got over my fear of being pregnant and delivering again. But I never got over my fear of the pain. I decided to have more children, but this time, I would be a better advocate for myself. I would ask for drugs early and ask for them often enough for my request to be treated seriously.

Because I managed to get over my fear, I gave birth to two lovely little girls. I was induced early each time, but the pain was managed and I could tolerate it.

It was still difficult, of course — I doubt giving birth could ever be otherwise. But it was so easy compared to the first time. I experienced discomfort, but nothing that registered as pain.

Those positive experiences gave me the confidence to get pregnant a fourth time.

Revisiting Pain

Fittingly, I gave birth a fourth time on the fourth day of the year.

While I sat in the hospital bed, waiting to be induced, the ground outside was being covered by a thick layer of snow. The storm became so massive that the parking lot soon emptied and other than the snow plow making its regular rounds, almost nobody drove in to the hospital. Even the emergency wing seemed relatively quiet.

Some of the people who didn’t make it just happened to be staff. Nurses, doctors, and specialists stayed home instead of braving the difficult road conditions. Others were late.

And just my luck, the anesthesiologist was one of them.

She showed up late, but still had time to insert the epidural. After inserting it, she discovered it had a faulty catheter — it didn’t have a hole to administer the meds. She had to remove it and start over again. The entire process lasted an excruciating 45 minutes. Then, I finally felt the drug-induced relief kick in.

It was short-lived. It took so long to get the epidural in me that they could only give me a small dose. By the time the baby was ready to come out, the anesthesia had worn off.

Despite all my planning and prepping, I was going to give birth to this baby the natural way.

The pain was very real, but I managed to breathe through it. I closed my eyes. I remained quiet. I felt my husband’s presence by my side, his touch on my shoulder. This time, I felt everything, but I concentrated all my efforts on getting the baby out and my focus didn’t waver.

After I gave birth, I cried. I cried because I cried every time I met one of my children for the first time — when I traded feeling their kicks in the womb for holding them in my arms. But I also cried because I felt an overwhelming sense of pride for weathering the pain. I had tapped into a strength I didn’t know I had.

Rediscovering Strength

I have felt weak for most of my life. I grew up feeling like I had too little control over anything, and once I left home and began adulting, I felt almost constant anxiety, uncertainty, and fear.

Because of that, I’ve had a hard time feeling good about myself. It’s hard to find anything to admire and love about yourself when your mood is colored by nail-biting negativity.

Working through the pain of childbirth was a transformation.

I still have high levels of anxiety. I still struggle to see myself in a positive light. And I still have a hard time with any kind of setback.

But now I always know I’m capable of being strong.

I never expected pain to be validating or empowering. But after I had spent so long feeling crushed by trauma, being able to withstand something so intense made me feel that much more in control of myself and my experiences.

I’m not advocating for anyone to decline an epidural. By all means, if you wish to have one, have one. I’m done having children — the risks are too high for me and four is already quite a handful — and if I was going to do it again, I’d ask for all the drugs. But I am grateful I had the opportunity to endure something with purpose, to grow from it, and to reclaim a small part of myself in the process.

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