Wished I'd known more......

My friends daughter is now pregnant and has asked me what it's like! All I could say is that all three of my births were very different, the second was by far the worst, which made me petrified of having number three, which was then the easiest and the best. I have advised her to learn all she can as I think that knowing what is happening to your body can stop a lot of panic. I went into shock after no2, I did think I was dying as I had given birth before and this didn't happen then. Horrid experience. I wish someone would have told me that I might not immediatley fall head over heels in love. I did second time but just felt numb after the first. I still think that its the most fantastic thing in the world tho', all of a sudden there is another person in the room and they didn't come in thru the door. The midwife who delivered my 2nd had worked for a while in Africa was then quite old, but when all was calm and I was feeling ok, I noticed she was a bit teary, I asked why and she said 'it doesn't matter how many times I see it, the birth of a healthy child is always a miracle' Getting quite emotional myself now and maybe a little bit broody!

The staff in the hospital where I had dd were fantastic, with one or two exceptions. We wee on the special care ward, and I think that made a difference, from talking to other mums - we could put our babies in the nursery at night but on the ordinary wards, although this was possible in practise, in reality there was no-one around to look after them. Agree about the foul food though- fortunately there was a lot of fast food on site so dh kept be going with baguettes!

Oh I agree with the "medieval torture" comment - I can't believe that in this day and age we've not come up with an easy, pain free way to give birth!!

Self serve breakfast - fine by me. It was only there when I had DS2 so I was happy to leave him quietly sleeping in my room whilst I ate my breakfast. Not sure I'd have left my PFB (Precious First Born) though. It was the cushionless chairs in the breakfast room that got me!! Ouch!

Re Visiting : with DS1, dads could visit pretty much any time (got chucked out at night though) but when DS2 was born in the same hospital, it had all changed.

Oh yes - and the bloody rude kitchen staff !!

That reminds me - Oh how horrible it's all coming back to me now - me post epidural unable to walk with catheter still in - shut up in my little room with brand new dd - no clue what to do if she cried - I certainly couldn't get to her ! Darling babe slept all night though !

Then self-serve breakfast and no mw in sight to ask for help - was I to wheel babe and catheter to kitchen to get breakfast or do I risk kidnapping by leaving babe in room ? Ended up standing by door looking so worried that another mum went and fetched me some tea and toast !

Then - no advice what to do with babe when in loo or showering - ended up blithely leaving her in my room where no-one would have heard her cry or noticed if she was being kidnapped !

And - why can't dad's come in at any time !!

Now I've relived that I'm cross all over again !

Sorry if the "medieval torture" comment sounded flippant. I'm not trying to make light of anyone's sufferings. I was trying to find a phrase to express the horrendous pain that some (but not all!!!) people experience and that I expected, and was very relieved not to feel.

It's not really a conspiracy but I'd feel really guilty about telling a 1st time pregnant mother what my labours were like.

I was the first to give birth out of a group of 7 in my antenatal class & one of the mothers asked me what it was like. My reply was something along the lines of "no comment"! Later, the mother agreed with me that it was the best thing to say. Especially after we'd all swapped gory details!

I would never say that it wasn't bad but I'd probably hedge round it. I delivered large babies which made my 1st labour particularly difficult - not everyone would have this problem.

Monkey and Crunchie, I've never been accused of being part of a conspiracy before. Actually, I wasn't lying when I said giving birth wasn't unbearable agony and wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. And I'm not trying to claim it didn't hurt or was a beautiful experience (definately not!). What I was trying to do was reassure anyone who is about to give birth and is terrified, that it is not inevitable that it will feel like some form of medieval (however it's spelt) torture. However, I do appreciate that some people have awful experiences and they do have my sympathy. I would hate to think I made anyone feel inadequate or guilty for having pain relief, for example. I was lucky, not brave, or in anyway superior to anyone else. I do agree with you about hospitals, though.

I agree a bit about the conspiracy theory of mothers when describing giving birth. My mum said it was a bit like bad period pains!!

However I had 2 c-sections, one at 27 weeks and had no real choice. In all honesty I found the pre and post care fantastic in both cases, my community midwife who came every couple of days when I was at home couldn't have been better.

Overall however I think women as a general rule are made to fel bad about giving birth, wanting pain relief, and even wanting information. This leaves people feeling guilty about not having a 'natural' birth and not bonding with their babies. Ghosty I would say it took me nearly 6 months before I actually felt my first dd was mine. Second time around I was prepared not to bond, and it took a few weeks before I realsied how much this little bundle meant to me.

That's why Mumsnet is so good as we are as honest as we can be about our experiences and I think everyone here wants to get rid of their guilt feelings. I know I come here to check I am 'normal' and that my kids are too, and that life is not a bowl of cherries, and motherhood can be totally c**p at times. You can't really admidt to all this in REAL life

I wish I had known that it wouldn't hurt as much as I thought (each one getting easier and less painful, less time).

I also wish I had known how big I looked whilst pregnant - went to Majorca when 32 weeks pregnant (wouldn't let me fly home - another story) last summer and went topless - thought I didn't look that big! When I got the photos back, couldn't believe that my mum and two kids let me walk on the beach looking like I did. Very scary (and the size of those nipples - wow!!!).

I wish I'd known more about what having sex could lead to.......

I think what I would say to anyone expecting their first baby is not to have too hard and fast ideas. You can't possibly know what labour is going to be like and how you will react to the pain until it's happening. No one can describe how it feels. I feel really sad when I come across someone who had their heart set on a 'natural' birth, and feels an awful failure because it didn't work out that way.

Ghosty - I didn't 'fall' for my ds straight away. For the first 3 days of his life I went through the motions of being a good mother, but basically didn't feel connected at all, although everyone else in my family was gooing over him. I could see that he was a perfectly nice looking baby, but he could have been anyone's. On the evening of the third day I took him down to the nursery to change his nappy, looked down at him, and suddenly felt flooded with this immense protective feeling which has never gone away. How someone who doesn't bond with their baby for a long time gets through those first few weeks I just don't know - it must be awful.

Well, there's no doubt I am a lucky one, not just in the fact I had a much easier labour than any of you below by the sound of things! but also because I had fantastic care.

dd was posterier towards the end, my community midwife told me, told me what to do, I spent the next week on my hands and knees or over the bean bag and she turned. Our parentcraft classes went into a lot of detail about labour, birth, and afterwards. My birthing midwives were fantastic but most importantly empowered me to do everything the way I wanted to. My husband was a wonderful birthing partner - taught me how to use gas and air correctly so it actually helped when I needed it to. And afterwards my community midwife was again there in my house helping, as was my gp. When I talk to my friends in the US, I seem to have considerably better care throughout, but maybe I was very lucky.

I'm not sure what it helps a pregnant person to know - if I'd heard ALL the bad stories when pregnant I probably wouldn't have been as calm as I was. I watched LOADS of those baby programmes on sky in late pregnancy and I think that helped a lot - watching a lot of births seemed to make me more realistic.

I think the most important thing to pass on is that you honestly can't plan how it's going to be. If you're the kind of person who takes control through knowledge that makes it very difficult. Being able to turn off your thinking brain and tune in to your body's requirements is a very tough thing to teach.

I wish I'd known that it was perfectly normal to have those horrible night sweats - I thought I'd got some ghastly infection !

AND I wish I'd known how much you really do continue to bleed for a week or so after - I had only bought 1 pack of maternity pads !!!

AND I wish I'd known that I still looked huge - coz I felt as light as a feather - but many photos are evidence that I was still huge !!!

What really made me angry was women's reactions AFTER the birth. I mean it was horrendously agonising, I couldn't sit down, I felt like shit basically, and I could have really done with some sympathy & empathy, but it's all stiff upper lip, like even after the event there's this great communal lie that it's not that bad. Blimey, if any of the men I know had gone through such a frightening and painful experience we wouldn't hear the bloody end of it.

I agree with Ionesmum about the lack of info after the birth. I don't know anyone who's had a good post-natal experience on the NHS. Mine was so bad I left the hospital 2 days after having an emergency caesarian. The standard of care was positively second-world, barbaric, a totally miserable experience. I had my second child abroad and the difference was unbelievable. The standard of care, the standard of the surroundings, and the food and EVERYTHING was 100% better. I stayed in a whole week with number 2, and the day I left the doctor tempting said "you doon't have to go home yet if you don't feel like it...." Dh thought he was going to have to take an eviction order out to get me back home! (the birth was again a horrible experience, but every memeber of staff I came into contact with gave such considerate, attentive care the difference psychologically was amazing)

I hated every one after my DS was born - I couldn't believe everyone had lied to me...All my friends who already had children were all soppy and soft focussed about my pregnancy - I couldn't believe that they had forgotten to tell me how shocking giving birth was...
I wish that someone could have told me the real possibility of labour 'not progressing'... I knew that you could have a c-section if there was a problem with the baby but it never occurred to me that I would not be able to give birth myself ...I felt like the biggest failure on the planet after 40 hours of staying at 5cm ...
I wish that someone could have told me all about the possibility of not loving my baby the moment I saw him - that was what really shocked me ... he could have been anyone's baby ... he certainly didn't feel like the one that had been in my tummy ...
One of the worst things now is that I can still (If I let myself think about it for too long) feel very jealous of people who do give birth naturally and of those who are in love with their newborns ...

My first labour really knocked me for 6. It was very intense from the word go and I just panicked. All I could think was "I can't go through 12 hours of this". If only I'd put this into words then the MW would probably have pointed out it was unlikley to be much longer at all (whole thing over in 3.5hrs). My point is that I was so full of all the info I'd read and been told that I KNEW first labours went on forever and the intensitiy of it all really shocked me. The whole thing was pretty gruesome.

However 2nd time when my waters broke and the contractions kicked in I knew it was following the same pattern. This time I stayed much calmer as the only thought in my mind was "It'll all be over soon" and it was (1.20 this time). The pain wasn't nearly so bad but I'm sure it was because I was calmer (and comfortable at home and not being hurled around an ambulance flying over the moors!).

Both my births were very different. If I told someone about the first it would put them off. If I told them the happy nature of the second they wouldn't beleive me. The first definietly helped me with the second but all labours are so very different I think its hard to "prepare" someone. My only advice would be to be ready for the unexpected and never assume anything.

I've turned into one of those annoying women who says "well, it bloody well hurts but I can't explain it". I didn't have too bad a time compared to many others (8 hours, gas and air, at home) but it still did hurt, a lot, and I haven't forgotten it. Read somewhere that "when you think you're about to die and you think you can't go on any more, it's nearly over". Sums it up for me. So I keep quiet-ish since I think it's impossible to explain if you've never done it. And only once you've experienced it can you have any idea what childbirth is all about. Feel free to disagree, but that's how it feels for me. I read everything I could get my hands on but I don't think anything but the reality could have prepared me IYSWIM.

I'm inclined to dodge the question now when confronted by first timers. This is partly because I told someone to be sure to have an epidural if she was induced, only to be told that there were no epidurals available in the hospital she was going to! I couldn't think of any way back from that, so had to shut my trap.

I wish I'd been able to ask more during the birth - too high on pethadine. I saw the scissors for the cord and thought it was me they were going to cut and panicked.
I also wish I'd known about my milk suppy changing on day 4 after the birth, I had the blues & baby had no food. Not to mention how sore my bum was!

That's why you need a doula

More seriously... also had an OP labour but seem to have reacted differently to it as some of you have... I need to add it was a 24hour labour with a 6h30 2nd stage (just in case you think it wasn't a bad OP)... and baby stayed OP throughout and had NO pain relief (not even gas and air because I hated it and was at home so forget epidural)... still I am very proud and have happy memories of my labour...
I recently read from an author that we needed to take responsibility for our labours (ie not blame the mw or doctor or who ever else) and forgive ourselves... I think that it's very true.

Willow2... what about trying to move on from this bad experience ? Is there no one qualified you can talk to ? It is such a shame to stay on such a bad memory....