What did you learn from giving birth? - Your help needed

That ultimately you have no control over the situation. Your wishes can, and will be, ignored by the medical staff and you may well feel as if you have been treated like a slab of meat by the endo of the whole process.

That husbands cope best if they're at the talking end, not the business end.

Patient communication is not the NHS's strong point.

That babies who end up in SCBU usually come right in the end.

that when you go into hospital for a scan "just to check" at 39 weeks, you may come home with a baby

that I was right not to spend 39 weeks worrying about giving birth, as in the end I didn't have to do anything (just lie back and let it be done to me - "elective" cs)

that it DOES matter to me how I gave birth and that I will continually want to slap all those people who tell me "well you've got a healthy baby and thats all that matters" - and then subject them to major abdominal surgery

that it is possible to be pregnant and end up with a child without giving birth in between; have been puzzling about what to write on this thread as I don't feel that I have given birth at all...

that it is not wise to refuse the anti-vomiting drug, and that DH's reflexes are quite fast (removing baby from vomit landing zone)

... why bidets come in useful.

That you & your midwife's idea of 'something to take the edge off the pain' can differ greatly - I was thinking pethedine, she produced co-codamol.

That despite having thought for years that newborn babies resemble something from outer space, your own will look truly beautiful the minute you see it.

That it is not a good idea to refuse pain relief after a c/section because whatever they give you at the time eventually stops working.

That men seem to assume you to know what to do with a baby even if you've never had one before.

That you don't know the true meaning of the word "worry" until you have given birth.

That everything you've ever achieved before can seem so trivial compared to your achievement of creating a baby.

That however excited and thrilled you are with your new baby you're so utterly exhausted that you fall asleep anyway!

That however tired you are after giving birth, you don't sleep - too busy gazing into your new baby's eyes.
That you never realised how much your Mum loved you.

that when they say push they mean really push

Eek.

that birth is the (relatively) easy part...looking after the baby, now there's challenge

That you can't push like on the telly as you get told off, and that to push like you're having a poo..............

Not to believe people who say "first babies are never early" (dd was a month early).

My hips are wider than I thought!

. . that you can push a pineapple through the eye of a needle

A new-found respect for your own mother.

that when they take away the bottom of the bed to break your waters, you can't actually put your legs down straight away! ( i remember trying to convince everyone it was o.k i just needed to stretch)

that you regain your dignity a few hours later when they force you into a shower cubicle with a panic button hanging in!

I like this thread - it's not often I feel I have anything worthwhile to contribute (not that that ever stops me, of course...)

That the staff on the post-natal ward can be bloody unhelpful and leave you to change your own sheets within hours of the birth...

That once the contractions start, it's too late to change your mind about having a baby!

That nothing, not pregnancy, nor all the books you have read, will prepare you for the reality of birth.

And again, none of that will prepare you for motherhood.

Take a huge box of expensive chocolates in to hospital with you and offer all staff a choc when they come to see you. Not only do they become more helpful (even talking like normal human beings) but they seem to appear more frequently.

That you can still love a man who filmed you during labour (but only if he wipes the disk)

That being told "keep on pushing, you're doing really well" is not encouraging, and that the answer to "keep going you're going to have a beautiful baby soon" is "sod off I don't want a fr*ggin baby, just stop it hurting."

That the pain never got so bad that I brought up the time five years earlier when I thought he'd stood me up at Liverpool St Station, even though this was my constant fear throughout late pregnancy.

That the words dignity and labour have no connection.

That my dh shows his love with homemade shepherds pie and not flowers. I, however, wanted flowers.

another one; that breastfeeding can hurt MORE than giving birth and that any midwife who lets you leave hospital without showing you how to latch the baby on correctly should be shot (still b/f at 5 months but only because dh has asthma + eczema and with enormous support from him, b/f counsellor etc)

That my pelvis is shaped in such a way that it guides baby's head sideways rather than down
That the nerves in my back are different to most peoples so epidurals don't numb the right area
That choosing which hospital to go to by how clean the toilets were rather than the 'availability of aromatherapy candles' was the better option.
That dh would make a good midwife (that's what the midwife told him anyway).
That it's true that as you push a baby out one way, a pile pops out the other.
That piles are more painful than stitches for the first week or so.
Not to let dh look at your stitches to 'see if they're infected', the horrified look on his face made me feel even worse (and they weren't infected, just blooming painful).
As someone else said, that however bad a time you have, if you had an emergency section people always assume you were too posh to push and had it easy.
That, with enough anaesthetic, a vaginal birth and a section feel almost identical... can't tell where the baby came out, just glad it did.
That recovery from a vaginal birth (very large episiotomy) is more painful but much quicker than recovery from a section.
That your own baby is always perfect, even when they have unusual features eg. hairy earlobes, clubfeet, sacral dimple, boxer's nose....to me she's perfect and I love her!