Orgasmic birth?

[leurMaman]

Has anyone here ever experienced orgasmic birth? I'm a Bradley Method instructor, and I've had two fantastic natural births. This site caught my eye. Wouldn't that be cool? http://www.orgasmicbirth.com/

[Mrshawwk]

I have read about this before, but it kind of weirds me out. Orgasms should be husband related, not so much baby related, to my way of thinking... I don't want to remember the birth of my daughter as giving me an orgasm, you know? But, I can see the other side too and with a different way of thinking, it would be kinda cool...I guess.

I did have a little tiny pang of orgasm type feeling with my last birth, which was odd amist all the pain and stretching of birth, but...shrug. It was weird. (okay, you can all applaud my bravery at admitting that to you!)

[leurMaman]

I've seen so many birth videos as a birth educator, that I'm really not phased easily about birth-related sensations. I would settle for one of those elusive "pain-free" births that a few of my books talk about - much less pleasure! hehe - we'll see. I just thought I'd throw it out there and see if there were mamas that actually had some sort of pain-free or pleasurable experience. I have to say, despite trying to use words like "surge" and stay away from negative tones, my births were totally PAINFUL! Never more than I could handle though...

[Nan'sMom]

Originally Posted by leurMaman

Has anyone here ever experienced orgasmic birth? I'm a Bradley Method instructor, and I've had two fantastic natural births. This site caught my eye. Wouldn't that be cool? http://www.orgasmicbirth.com/

Laura Shanley has a lot about sensual and/or orgasmic birth on her site: http://www.freebirth.com/ It is really fascinating and yes, IMO, would be very cool! But I haven't personally experienced it. My last birth was pretty darn great, but not in that particular way...I still found transition and crowning to be painful.

[ColoradoMama]

Originally Posted by leurMaman

I have to say, despite trying to use words like "surge" and stay away from negative tones, my births were totally PAINFUL!

I cannot stand the term "surge." I think if my midwife said that to me in labor, I'd deck her! My births were painful, too. Wonderful and amazing, but painful. I know some women have painless or pleasurable births, but I'm not one of them. I loved my births - pain and all. I'm not sure I'd know what to think if they weren't painful! I'm sure I could get used to it though.

[Mrshawwk]

My births were progressively less painful. The 1st was 16 hours with a posterior baby. ouuuuch. The second was 4 hours and had some backlabor, but was so much better. The 3rd was 2 hours and muuuch less painful, although by no means pain-free. It's hard to remember now, but I remember screaming bloody murder with #1 and #2, but I didn't need to with #3.
Holy cow, when that baby comes out of that little hole, it hurts!!!

[lizajane30]

Well, my DS' birth was almost pain-free. Crowning hurt a bit, but not too bad. (And yes, I did tear.) I wouldn't describe the experience as "orgasmic" but I would go so far as to say it felt good. It felt like my body knew exactly what it was doing, and I just enjoyed the ride.

I don't know if I just got lucky, or what, but I came to birth with the notion that it wasn't going to be so painful. My mother had three unmedicated births (two of them at home) and I just always knew from when I was pretty young that birth is fine. DH and I took a fairly mainstream birthing class (Lamaze, pain management etc.) and I'd used breathing techniques for pain management and focus before. The only birthing book I read was Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth (which does talk briefly about orgasmic birth). I looked at all the photos of women giving birth joyfully and thought, "That's what I'm gonna do." When I got the inevitable "Aren't you scared?" questions, I answered without hesitation, "No." And I believed that, truly. I had no fear of birth. I did not listen to people's horror stories, try as they might to scare me.

It probably helped that I had two weeks of pre-labor before DS' birth. I had tons of contractions, but not painful ones, and each time I had one I stopped moving, closed my eyes and smiled. I visualized my cervix as a Lifesaver candy (sounds strange, I know, but picture the way when you suck on a Lifesaver, not only does the hole in the middle get larger but the candy also flattens out). The usual "opening flower" image did nothing for me.

DS' birth day was the most powerful I have ever felt. I moved my body instinctively, I made the low sounds that came naturally, and I let it happen. (Of course, I came crashing back to earth as DS' undiagnosed tongue-tie turned my nipples to raw hamburger in the next six weeks.)

I know that circumstances will be different this time around and things may be completely different, but I'm holding in my heart the memory of how wonderful DS' birth was, and I know this next birth will be what it is.

Okay, I know I sound like some hippie living in the woods here, but I'm not. I just really believe that my body will do what it needs to.

[leurMaman]

Linda, What a beautiful story. I had a couple of week prelabor with mine - was usually dialted to 3 or 4 before the big day arrived. Still, I didn't quite escape the pain. I like your visualization image of the life-savor candy!

I had the tongue-tie issue with DS! It was crazy painful for three months! I made it through, but by the time my poor bbs were done, I could have nursed a warthog with a straight face. With DD I got thrush, mastitis 3 times (despite cleaning and lanolin). In fact, for me the whole intro to parenting came with mega sacrifices. I'm still excited to give birth and breastfeed again It's always worth it. This time, though, I'm determined to have it easy.

[lizajane30]

Originally Posted by leurMaman

I had the tongue-tie issue with DS! It was crazy painful for three months! I made it through, but by the time my poor bbs were done, I could have nursed a warthog with a straight face. With DD I got thrush, mastitis 3 times (despite cleaning and lanolin).

Oh yeah...I had thrush for the first 7 months of DS' life, thanks in no small part to the beating my nipples took before we clipped his tongue-tie. His latch is still bad, to this day. If Version 2.0 has tongue-tie you can bet we will clip it ourselves if we have to! Thankfully I've never had mastitis.

[leurMaman]

clip it? Wait - maybe I'm confused about tongue-tie. DS had a strange palate/roof in his mouth, so he basically sucked the nipple in and pushed it up to the palate in an odd way. I had to work with a LLL leader and lact. consult. about that, but in the end nothing helped except sticking in out through the first three months of pain. What is the tongue-tying you are talking about? I hope v.2.0 doesn't

[lizajane30]

Originally Posted by leurMaman

clip it? Wait - maybe I'm confused about tongue-tie. What is the tongue-tying you are talking about? I hope v.2.0 doesn't

DS had a short lower lingual frenulum--the little piece of flesh that connects the tongue to the lower jaw. A short (or tight) frenulum keeps the baby from properly sticking his tongue out over the lower jaw when nursing, so he was basically chewing my nipples off. The clipping we had done was a simple procedure done with local anesthesia. It's called a frenotomy.
Your case sounds like it was more complex than ours.

[leurMaman]

Nice to know! Its nice how you keep learning new things about bfing and birthing as you go I'm glad that was easily remedied.