crazy or not here we come

I've had lots of people ask me why in the world I want to have a natural birth. While I don't disagree with people thinking it's crazy, I disagree that it's crazy. Let me explain. I have to get into Gracie's birth story a little bit for you to understand, so bear with me. I started having contractions about 10 pm July 2, I knew I was going to start active labor that morning because I lost my mucus plug. But no contractions at all until we laid down to go to bed. They started out really slow and not to bad, maybe every 30 minutes but I still slept some that night. We got up at 7:00 to get ready for my doctors appointment in Provo at 9:00 am, we were living in Centerville at the time so we knew it would take about an hour to the doctors office. The contractions at this point were every 6-8 minutes and pretty uncomfortable. We drove the hour and by the time we got there the contractions were 5 minutes apart and I wanted to cry haha We went into my doctors and bless her heart she tried to tell me I wasn't in active labor. I kindly (kinda) informed her if she sent me home I would be having my baby in Salt lake because the car ride is way to long. She told me to head over to the hospital to be monitored but if I didn't progress 2 cm in 1 hour I was outta luck. I just said okay and we made our way over. It was probably almost 11 am at this point and by the time I got checked in it was 11:30. They let me do some walking for an hour to see if I would. At the doctors I was a 2.5 by 12:30 the lady said maybe a 3. They suggested I take some morphine for the drive home, now pause. Anyone who knows me knows I barley take medicine because 1. I am healthy and don't need it and 2. I react weird to anything and everything. Unpause. As I was sitting there feeling the contractions thinking about sitting in the car for another hour and feeling defeated I said okay that's fine. Now, morphine makes me groggy, not kind of groggy but out of it groggy. I look back now and I literally don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't even in that much pain I think I was just scared of sitting in the car with the pain. They also told me first time moms are usually in labor an average of 12 hrs and I wasn't sure I could survive 10 more hours. So they gave it to me and the groggy started almost 5 mins later, I couldn't walk or even stay awake. They wanted to make sure I was okay so they let me stay another 30 minutes. The nurse said "Oh wow your at a 5!" See if I used bad language this is where it would be inserted. I was admitted right then and there. They asked if I wanted and epidural which I couldn't really respond because I was half asleep but Chase said yes she would. The worst part about all of this is the morphine did ZERO for the pain, literally nothing it just made me so I couldn't think straight. Next thing I knew my doctor walked in asking to break my water before I had the epidural, I said sure. See here is another place to insert bad words because not a single person informed me that the pain gets unbearable after having your water broke. At this point I was a six and after my water broke I wanted to punch someone but even thought the pain was that bad I couldn't stay awake. So 10 minutes later I hear someone telling me to roll over for the epidural, it was fine until...I had a weird reaction to that medication. Gracie's hear beat was dropping because  I wasn't getting enough air because of the epidural and it didn't help I couldn't wake up long enough to hear what they were saying to me. So they putt me on oxygen. it had been 45 minutes since the epidural and I woke up to them telling me I was at a 10 and I could start pushing if I wanted. I declined and asked to sleep more, yupp I said no to pushing so I could sleep haha but about 15 minutes later I felt like I needed to go "potty" and asked if I could. The nurse said "yeah just let me check you....OH! you don't have to go to the bathroom her head is coming out. Don't move, I'll call your doctor" I started pushing, they soon realized I had been sleeping that I wasn't pressing the button for the medicine in the epidural to actually come out. So they pressed it for me because again on average you push 2 hrs. The told me the medicine wouldn't work for another 30 mins but that I had to start pushing because her heart rate was dropping. Well I only pushed 20 minutes, I felt everything, including the stitches afterwards. I also had a high fever because of the epidural and you know that shaking they tell you about? Well because I'm so sensitive to medicine the epidural made me feel and look like I was having some kind of attack. I wasn't I just couldn't control my body. It lasted for a whole hour.They said it was the worst reaction they had seen to the epidural, Yay. I kept getting told how easy and "text book" my labor was which in reality it was if one thing wouldn't have been a factor... that is ... medicine. I took 2 Tylenol, that is it for my recovery. I hated how out of control the other medicine made me feel I barley wanted to take Tylenol.

So now you see why I don't want an epidural? I like feeling in control of my body. I like knowing what is going in and coming out. All in all my labor was maybe 4 hrs, I did the hardest part without the numbing of the epidural anyway so I really want to try. Don't get me wrong there is still that little part in my brain telling me "Oh if it's to hard just get the epidural" but I have 12 weeks to get that out of my mind. I have been doing lots of research and they say
1. you are less likely to tear if you don't have any epidural because you are pushing with the contractions as you feel them
2. recovery is easier
3. the labor is faster
Those are the three things that really get me excited. I had an easy easy easy recovery but hey I'm sure it could be easier in some ways? maybe? I also had a quick labor but I want to try to only be at the hospital an hour before starting to push. My goal is to stay home as long as possible but without having the baby in the car haha My biggest concern thus far is that I may for some unknown reason need an emergency c-section for Hadlie's safety. I would hate if something happened to her because of my choise.

The next thing people have asked is what am I doing to prepare for it?
1. Working out- from all the stuff I've read this is the best way to prepare. I walk/run 30-45 minutes every day. Then I do 15 minutes of cardio and 15 minutes of stretching.
2. Breathing- I always get false contractions (sometimes real) when walking at the gym. So I take that time to practice breathing through them. I also take 15 minutes a day while Gracie sleeps and just concentrate on breathing and thing about positive things.
3. Healthy eating- this one is mainly so she isn't a giant. I am making sure the weight I am gaining is weight Hadlie is gaining. I have gained eight pounds so far and plan on gaining a pound a week for the next 12 weeks.
4. Talking about it- I talk to Chase about it, how he is going to help me and also talking to my mom (who is horrified that I am going to do this) about being supportive and not telling me to give in when it's painful. I also have talk to our friend Katie who has done it now three times. Did you know you don't have to be confined to the bed? You just tell them you want to walk through contractions and they just tell you that's fine just come back every 2 hrs to monitor the baby for 20 mins. I have gotten some awesome advice from her that I'm going to try to apply.

Sorry this was a novel but women use to do this every day before medicine. I am just trying to build up the courage and not have that feeling of I can just give in. Any advice would be great ;)