How did you show yourself up during labour?

[garlicy]

I was off my head on pethidine and obsessed with the fire alarm going off Every time a new member of staff appeared, I would ask if them what would happen if the fire alarm went off, including the surgeon who eventually did my section.

I know to this day that I am known as the Fire Alarm Lady in that hospital

I was screaming 'get it out of me' repetitively and swearing really loud whilst in the corridor of the hospital, covered in puke and shaking and all the pregnant mum's going about their antenatal appointments and scans saw and heard me. A wheelchair was found pretty quickly to get me out of there 🤣

Was having episiotomy tear stitched and obstetrician looked up from the bottom of the bed and enquired ‘Do you have asthma?’
My response, ‘OMG, have I ripped so much you can see my lungs!?!?’
Cue much giggling….
The dr was only enquiring so she could prescribe suitable medication that would not affect my asthma….

I still cringe to this day! 26 years later…..

That is definitely weird!

They do say it helps with labour

So funny 😅 I thought the consultant was rather handsome and said to him have you been eating chewing I can smell it ! Then after came out of c section I kept going on and on chattering lol mil was like shhh just rest now don’t talk too much 🤣

I am a midwife and had midwife friends looking after me, I told one that her examination was wrong and there was absolutely no way I could only be 2cm. I then told the doctor if he just cut the baby out now I'd buy him a massive Easter egg. After telling her before labour I definitely wouldn't be having an epidural I then completely lost my shit at her when she suggested other pain relief over an epidural. I then kept telling them how to do their job, projectile vomited on another colleague who came in to see me and when they wheeled me for a crash section my midwife friend was crying and I turned and said 'stop crying, it's not you they're cutting open'.
Once the baby was out, I could hear my (very lovely) colleagues saying the baby really suited the name we liked, I shouted from the operating table 'stop naming my baby without me!'
I was a horrible woman to care for, but very apologetic afterwards!

When I'm nervous, I talk. I find conversation helps distract me from the situation.
So with my first, I ended up chatting my head off to the midwife and basically asked her a million questions about her life 🙈
When she left the room, my husband told me to stop interviewing her and leave the poor woman alone, to which I yelled "I'M IN LABOUR SO I CAN DO WHAT I WANT AND SHE SHOULD JUST BE HAPPY THAT IM INTERESTED IN HER LIFE"

Poor woman 😂🙈

I also did this. Poor anaesthetist couldn't get a word in while I yelled "I don't care what happens! I consent! Just stab me in the back already!!!"

I remember the midwives telling me to take some puffs of the gas and air and I kept batting it away exclaiming "I don't like it"!

To be fair, I hated how it made me feel. I felt like my voice sounded like the girl from the exorcist, yet everyone in the room said I sounded normal lol!

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread and shared my own experiences of birth pages away. I've had four children each birth completey different. These shared experiences have helped me realise that sometimes in life we are given an expectation of an experience that is polished up and then there is reality. I always felt like like I had to to to be brave a make minimal noise then nature took over.

Just kept obsessively asking every midwife if I’d done a poo on the table.

When baby appeared I was more interested in the possibility of a poo.

I wanted to be sick and noticed the name in the basin Armitage shanks so I shouted I’ve got a name for this baby and insisted it was a perfect name .. husband almost passed out the midwife went into hysterics

Got to hospital - was 10cm and baby was crowning - but the midwife was busy telling me I wasn't ready to push as it was 1st baby and I was talking so I can't be ready.

Told her to fuck off and begun pushing anyway then when she tried to get me onto the bed for me to lay down to deliver; told her I didn't want her as she doesn't know her job - so the 2nd midwife had to take over ..... baby was born 1 minute later

1st midwife tried to congratulate me and I continued to tell her to fuck off and get out - until she left the room - whoops

@Ellyesprit that made me laugh out loud.

Labour with my first was definitely not the time to discover that I have an odd reaction to Pethedine. I do not remember trying to climb out of a fifth floor window whilst yelling that I’d be back tomorrow when it was all over!

I've just remembered another one!
In a room a few hours after giving birth, I had t slept for days and had had a very long active labour so was shattered and very out of it.
Nurse came in to do my obs and I tearfully asked her if she was real, she laughed and said "yes I am" to which I burst into tears and cried "no you're not! Why are you lying to me?".
She then sat with me, comforting me and trying to convince me that she was intact real and I probably needed some sleep 🙃

I showed myself up because I sucked In lots of gas and air (bouncing on ball). Head flew back and then forwards, eyes had rolled into back of my head and I spoke like the exorcist. Husband said it was hands down the scariest fucking thing he'd ever seen. Obviously was off my tits and couldn't talk properly because of pain and weird posture. My hands were gripping the bed sheets too so I suppose it did look a little weird.

These stories are terrifying.
Is there anyone who didn't completely lose control and/or have a titanically embarrassing moment?

I'm very sensitive to drugs and hate being delirious more than anything. Is there anyone here who's delivered a baby and avoided both of those things?

Not me but I had a medical student in the same room. He slipped in my waters hit his head on an instrument tray and got carted off to casually with a scalp laceration. This was in the days where casually was in a different hospital one mile away

Pmsl at this!

Snorted my coffee at this

Omg all these stories are making me howl whilst simultaneously making me remember more and more embarrassing things that I did 😂🙈

Another one, when the anaesthetist came to do my epidural.
Me: "omg you were my anaesthetist when I had surgery last year! Mr Smith was my consultant"
Him: "it wasn't me. I've never worked with Mr Smith"
Me: "I THOUGHT I recognised you! I hope you're as gentle with me today as you were then"
Him: "It wasn't me"
Me: "It's so good to see you again!"
Him: "you've never seen me before"

This went on for a good while 😂

@jollyroll it's a thread inviting embarrassing stories so the responses will be very biased towards them it's not a reflection of the whole of labour for most people, although I'm sure most have an anecdote of a funny moment.

I had DS earlier this year and I don't feel embarrassed. If I done it during a dinner party then yes, but it's a labour ward. You will not be the first woman to have some odd moments during labour.

I was SO tired that I'm not sure what was sleep deprivation and what was the gas & air.
I had a lot of pressure which really felt like I desperately needed to poo, & telling the midwife this repeatedly - she tried her best but couldn't quite convince me that it was actually the baby.

I remember firmly asking for another examination and to know how long until delivery as I'd decided I could cope for exactly one more hour and any longer would mean I wanted more drugs. When the midwife said she could see his head, I just kept thanking her & if I wasn't in the pool I'd have probably hugged her.

I found that things I worried about before labour no longer mattered, in a way that was quite freeing. I'd taken a bikini top for the pool but in the moment I just didn't care (& I don't feel embarrassed by that at all). I was horrified by the idea of a urinary catheter beforehand but when offered the alternative of walking to the toilet just after delivery, I didn't give a shit any more.

I'd do it all again tomorrow for DS though.

I would have died of embarrassment - but lmao at this!

@jollyroll I was largely quiet in labour – my way of dealing with pain is to be very self-contained, I briefed DP beforehand that he had to advocate for the things I wanted/didn’t want as I didn’t want to talk, just go inside myself quietly. Then again, I refused pethidine and the gas and air made me feel sick so there was nothing to make me delirious or weird, and then the epidural dropped my blood pressure quite a bit so I was mostly busy sliding off the table while everything went white – that was the only “out of control” bit and sorted by the very calm anaesthetist.

I’m not a fan of the hypnobirthing course I did because it was very “anyone can simply breathe a baby out at home!” – I ended up with an EMCS because you can’t breathe a baby out if you don’t dilate effectively – but it was useful for counting techniques and feeling in control if that’s your jam.

😂