So did you feel disappointed about the way the labour went?
No, I don't think so. I mean at the time it was, it seemed a very long time but I was quite, I mean my main priority was not to, not to have an epidural or to, you know, I wanted to be aware of the whole process. And that was fine, that, that happened. I suppose it would have been, it would have been nice if it had been shorter and if we'd had a more cooperative midwife for the bulk of it. But in fact, you know, I was very pleased that, that I'd done it sort of almost without too much intervention in terms of pain relief and, yes, no, I mean it was, it was fine really.
Tell me again what did you do for pain relief?
I just used a TENS machine which I'd hired myself and then gas and air in, that the hospital provided.
Do you want to just explain what a TENS machine is?
A TENS machine is, it's a machine that you strap onto your back that, with little sort of pulses that you can then control the flow, it's sort of electrical pulses that dampen down your pain sensations and you have control over how quickly or how strongly the impulses are sent to you. So you can actually sort of switch it on and off to help you through your contraction and it's, it does actually help quite, quite well to block the pain out. And you can hire it in advance so you practise with it, but then obviously when the, when you're in labour it's, it's a whole new experience [laugh] sort of trying to work out when the contractions are coming and operate it. But, no, it was, it was quite useful. |
