This is what it feels like to get an epidural after 32 hours of labor

So they stick a big needle into your back and you jump and are sure you have just paralyzed yourself. The first needle is a shot to numb your skin and then a bigger, hollow needle goes in with a tiny tube that gets threaded into your spine. It seems like you shouldn't feel it but you still totally feel it. Or I did. [...] It felt like someone was stapling my back, but deep inside me.

Stay still, though, or else you'll be paralyzed!

I bore my eyes into Dustin, who sat on a stool in front of me, and broke a sweat, I think, from fear. I felt like I was in some kind of war. I felt like this was my moment, my big test, and I was rising to the occasion. I would save the world!

Except, in reality, I was doing the most banal thing in the world. I was giving f--king birth. [New York]