When a good friend of mine had her first baby, her husband said he finally understood why when women get together they all swap birth stories. Because it's like finding someone else who had been through combat.

At Feminist Mormon Housewives, a discussion came up in the comments about having birth naturally and with pain medication. The original question was Is it such a good thing to encourage women to withstand the horrible pain of childbirth without meds? I see women in our ward bragging about their natural childbirths all the time, and other women feeling guilty that they had pain medication.

I put my two cents in on the comments already, but thought I'd do an extendo-version on my blog. I don't presume to say I know what's best for everyone, but here are my war stories.

When I was pregnant with Grace I read what felt like thousands of books on pregnancy and labor. I had decided that I wanted to do this naturally and felt pretty confident that I would be able to. I was scared of what labor was going to be like, but did my best to just put my fears out of my mind. After all, every human you see represents yet another birth (and the births of innumerable ancestors).

I went into labor on a Friday night after a long walk. By 8 pm, the contractions were pretty regular. By midnight, they were five minutes apart and we decided to head to the hospital.

I spent Saturday in labor and by Saturday afternoon I hadn't made that much progress. The nurses insisted I’d end up with a C-section if I didn’t take some drugs. At that point, everything I thought labor would be was out the window. It was hard, like I expected it to be, but it just seemed so never-ending, and I didn't seem to be going anywhere.

So, first they tried Demerol. That didn't help the pain at all, I just felt groggy and out of it. Then, they tried Morphine and that was worse. They kept trying more and more morphine and it didn't take any pain away, it just made me feel like I was losing my mind.

I still wasn't progressing, so they broke my water. After I don't know how many hours, they decided to give me Pitocin. Everything I didn't want to happen was now happening and I started to feel like, just give me a C-section now if that's what I'm going to end up with.

Then, they gave me a morphine intrathecal (which is a walking epidural). That was fabulous - I just felt normal. I fell asleep and slept and slept. Finally, it was time to push. I pushed for three hours and on Sunday at 1:11 pm (after 40 hours or so of labor), Grace was born. She was 9 lbs 9 oz.

At first I thought I was just one of those women who would have died in childbirth if I'd been born a century earlier. Then, I started talking to other women and found out that my experience was incredibly normal. Almost everybody in a hospital setting had a similar experience.

For my second pregnancy, I decided to have a home birth. The whole idea of being "managed" in a hospital again scared me. My sister had her first at home and loved it. My sister-in-law and numerous women at La Leche League had had successful home births. But, my pregnancy ended up being high risk and we found a fantastic doctor and we decided to have the baby at the hospital.

My second hospital experience was wonderful. At home, my water broke around midnight. I waited for four hours or so before going to the hospital because I wanted to have progressed to a good point before we got there. By the time we got to the hospital, the contractions were three or four minutes apart and they were tough, but manageable.

I was brought to my room and labored there for a while longer. At one point, the labor was getting really intense. I was in transition, but I didn't know it at the time. My contractions were doubling up - one would start, peak, fall and instead of getting a break another would come right after that.

If things progressed along the same timeline as my first, I was looking at another 10 hours or more, and I started thinking that maybe I wanted something for the pain (even though before I had decided I wasn't going to take anything). We decided to wait for another 45 minutes and see where I was at. When they checked me I was ready to push. When it was time to push, I could actually push (with my first, I was so numb pushing was really difficult). 45 minutes later, after less than 8 hours of labor, Lillie was born. She was 8 lbs 12 oz.

My first daughter was incredibly sleepy for the first 48 hours after labor and wouldn’t nurse. I think (but I could be wrong) that this was due to all the medication. And, Lillie, while newborn sleepy, was more alert and had no problems breastfeeding.

The women I know who have been happiest with their births have had home births. Honestly, I don't know if that is because they feel an extra need to validate their choice, but I don't think so. I also know women who have an epidural early on and are happy with that.

I don't know what my first labor would have been like if I had had a doula who would have stuck up for me, helped me refuse medication and encouraged me that first labors are long and it will just take time. The pain before the medication was hard, but manageable. What made it less manageable was finding out that all that hard work had not brought any progress (and the freaking morphine).

I think the main thing that helped me with my second labor is that our nurse really stayed out of the way. She was helpful and encouraging, but she wasn't there much. She didn't check my progress every hour. I was only checked when I came into the hospital, and then right before it was time to push. Most of that time, it was just David and me. And, when it was all over, I didn't have to do the laundry.

There are pros and cons to using medication or not with labor. Because of my experience I would be scared to do anything but another natural labor. However, I also know the morphine intrathecal was an incredible relief. I don't judge anyone who uses anything. If it actually works for them, then great. But women have been having babies naturally since the beginning of time, and there's nothing wrong with that route, either.

Postscript: Jen's comments made me realize that my post might not have found the right tone. Having a high-risk pregnancy definitely made me realize that things can and do go wrong. I am grateful for the technology and help that doctors and hospitals provide when intervention is needed.