Reality Check

This recent sickness has brought me time to ponder....besides sleeping...getting sick...and laying on the couch...it really gave me time to think....my thoughts immediately went to am I really as tough as I think I am....I have always thought I handled pain pretty well....and made the decision early on in our pregnancy that if I could handle it....we were definitely planning on a natural child birth...of course at 38 I know better than to ever say absolutely on anything...but have always felt very confident that natural child birth was in our cards....because I handle pain well ...because I was scared of losing control....these were my reasons....well back to me laying on the couch sick as a dog this week....like I said I had time to ponder...what I pondered is have I ever really experienced real pain....I can't remember ever breaking a bone....having any type of real painful medical procedure....or having any real traumatic painful incident in my life...yes I have been in 2 major car accidents but I walked away from them...I have pushed thru pain while participating in athletic events...I usually don't take any medicine when I am sick...I don't complain when I am hurting...but these examples don't correlate to handling real pain well....the truth as I have come to it ...as I have been laying on the couch....is I really have no idea what real pain is....and I really have no idea how I will handle real pain....so if the truth be told...this last week as I was curled up on the floor next to the toilet if someone came to me and said that they could take away my sickness and make it all go away with a epidural......or that I could go thru with the sickness for another 10 hours but that eventually you will get better........I would have taken the epidural hands down........no question....not worrying one bit about control of the situation...or that I can handle the pain.............so as you can imagine....this latest illness has brought a reality check into my plans of natural child birth...it has shaken my confidence in my personal desire to deal with the pain....I will tell you that when I was at the hospital earlier this week getting my IV they put a medication in the IV to take away the nausea and to make me sleepy....I had no control........couldn't keep my eyes open....the pain was gone.......I was happy...relieved from the sickness........not once I was I concerned that I had lost control...not once did I feel bad for not handling the pain...in fact it was quite the opposite effect...I was relieved...comforted...and could finally relax that I was getting some much needed relief.....so with that.......it will be interesting to see how I handle my attempt at natural child birth....with that I am feeling better and calling it a good night...