The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Punishing Treatment

It brought back my baby's birth. After I had labored for a long time, I had a walking epidural. They only last about 2 hours. It wore off and I asked for another. The doctor had already been telling me that I would have to have a section, but that I could wait if I wanted to. Thanks for the support, Doc. He said he would order the epidural reloaded (whatever the term is). Then he stood out in the hallway for an hour flapping his jaws with another doctor. Right outside my door where he could hear me moaning and eventually yelling and eventually crying.

I knew he was punishing me for not doing what he wanted. It took two hours to get the epidural. I was going from 7cm to 8.5 cms and having a hard time.

My birth team kept asking the nurses where the pain relief was. They said the doctor had never ordered it. It was torture, the barbaric way he punished us for not going along. It wasn't the labor that was hard, it was the psychological aspect of it that was weird, like I was the enemy. There is a lot more to the story, but I'll never understand how he could be so vindictive. Oh, I wasn't sweet. My nurse kept saying that the doctor wanted to talk to me before he ordered the epidural. (After he told me he would order it). I yelled to the nurse, "He's been standing outside the f*****g door for forty-five f*****g minutes, when's he going to talk to me!" I really resent that my birth energy was squandered fighting with the doctor.

All I wanted to do was have my baby, I did not need anyone breathing down my neck.