AIBU to have found childbirth unbearably agonising?

[Caff2]

Just that. I had an elective section with ds2 because of it. And yet I have friends and read on here of people who "did it naturally" or "just had a bit of gas and air at the end".

Why was childbirth so awfully painful for me?

I totally agree with Wilson- so many different variables.

mine however was really easy and I hate to say it , not painful at all...my first baby and it was over in 2 hours start to finish. I had no pain relief or cuts/tears/stitches.( I have had worse periods.) but that's not to say if had another one it would be the same , in fact, I'm positive it would be awful so I'm quitting while I'm ahead ! ha ha

My second labour was bliss..
only after an epidural

totally agree morethanacondiment - dd was back-to-back, G&A did sod all, and most importantly my contractions started in the evening and lasted for 40 hours - I'm convinced that not having slept for two nights made the pain much worse. Or at least it made me much less able to bear it.

nothing irritates me like smug lucky "it honestly wasn't that bad" mothers!

The main reason why I only have 1 DD is because I found labour and childbirth so painful.

I did it on just gas and air for the first two and with nothing for my third. But only because my labours were stupidly quick. If I'd had to do it for 48 hours I would have been sold my unborn child into slavery for drugs. No chance of getting anything drugs wise with a 30 minute labour. (Not even a midwife....)

I think childbirth hurts even more if your body is tense.

DC1's birth was agony. I can't describe how awful it was. I was so thankful for the epidural.

I was terrified when I was pregnant with DC2, and was offered a c-section, but declined and opted for hypnobirthing, which helped but also was induced, so it was very quick.

I was very relaxed when I had DC3 at home, and didn't even need gas and air.

So I don't think some people are harder than others, or some people have lower pain thresholds. I think many factors, such as the size of the baby, the size of your pelvis, how relaxed you are, if it's your first baby, how long the labour lasts all play a part.

The main reason why I only have 1 DD is because I found labour and childbirth so painful.

YADNBU!!!!

I was too late for an epidural first time round. I think it took about 3 months for me to get over the shock of just how excruciating it was. I had a syntocin drip. The midwife offered me an epidural as she administered the drip. I said that I'd see how sore it was first . By the time I started begging for the epidural I was 7 cms and deemed too far gone for one. Labour was less than three hours though. I felt no pain at the pushing stage which was the bit is been terrified of beforehand.

Second time round I was in hospital and staff there didn't recognise I was in labour. Er, I was on my knees on the floor quietly bollocking myself for letting myself getting into this position once again. How, how, how? I knew how fucking painful it was going to be!!! I was 10 cms by the time they examined me. Luckily, again, the whole thing was quick.

On the other hand a work colleague was at home towards the end of her pregnancy and went for a poo. She didn't poo but her DS1 plopped into the toilet. She was going to name him Louis but decided against it.

I practically skipped to the delivery suite to get my induction started - was very positive everything was going swimmingly, hormone drip at full whack when my epidural fell out.

I thought I was strong and could cope with pain but this was something else. I'm 36, and I'm not ashamed to say I cried out for my mum.....

The anthethetist popped in to say there was an emergency and I'd have to wait to have my epidural resited, took one look at me literally climbing the wall trying to get away from the pains and said they'd gave to get someone else for the emergency. Once the epidural took hold everything was great once again....

My husband was a soldier - who's been to war and he says he's never seen anything like it. He does not know why there aren't more new mums out there with PTSD.

I'm never doing it again - EVER

Pain threshold had very little to do with it. My dsis had delightful first birth, was terribly smug about it. Her second was apparently horrendously painful. My dsil was the other way around, horrible first, but pretty much sneezed out the second on the sofa at home.

Mine was awful and my preparedness and pain threshold really were not the problem. The problem was being 10 day late with high blood pressure, spending 3 days being induced before they could even squeeze a hook in to break my waters (quote from midwife on day 2: 'the best we can say about your cervix is that it exists') Then when they finally got we going dd turning back to back, 7 more hours of hard labour (with no food or drink allowed), an epidural that didn't take, and some bloody huge slicing of my bits to get her out.

It was hell, people tell me I will forget but 2 years later I have not forgotten a moment of it. I will not being doing it again. I sometimes suspect that people who do it multiple times are a bit mad. We got kittens instead.

I think getting "in the zone" counts for a lot. Both my babies were large and back to back. The second was G&A only until a spinal block at the last moment for a theatre delivery with forceps. I think his shorter labour helped as I wasn't exhausted, and the pain was tolerable and my breathing flowed with it, I had hypnobirthing tracks on loop.

DS1, I started with hypnobirthing, and that part was similar. I'd had a very drawn out start to labour. It went haywire when my waters were broken, and my mind couldn't adjust to the contractions. Then the pethadine came out which locked locked me into a world of pain. By the time that wore off, I felt like I was on fire from my ribs to my knees. Baby was stuck and it ended up being an emcs.

The similarities of babies' size and positions make think that the key difference was my state of mind from exhaustion and pethadine. A short intense labour was preferable to the weekender!

Thanks for responses! I'd say I'm glad I'm not alone, but I'm sorry for all the other pain experiences!

Section was MARVELLOUS by comparison - no hours of pain, as civilised as childbirth can be, and didn't hurt much at all afterwards.

Oh and forgot to say - I was a baby for having cannula inserted, despite being fine with needles. It took them seven or eight goes, some in different veins, some in the same veins, and at one point I had a blood clot they had to flush because my veins are terrible. I had to have local anaesthetic in my hands after the fifth time.

And yet a full-on syntocin drip induction, being ramped up every half an hour, ARM and almost-third degree tear was fine - I managed for most of it with paracetamol and G&A. Diamorphine wore off quite quick. And yet having a cannula inserted made me cry. It's all relative, it's just that people tend to talk about birth pain more than they do any other type of pain. And someone who is fine with childbirth will cry and sob and scream at stubbing their toe, or something like that.

I got by on a whiff of gas and air, they were extremely painful but I am needle-phobic and so the idea of having an epidural was worse. Having said that, in the first birth there was a moment I though I was going to die from the pain, so perhaps a needle would not have been worse than that, but it was all too late and I was committed to the natural way and so on it went.

I wish birth wasn't painful but it really really is, a lot (for me at least).

Excruciatingly painful!! 72 hours of back to back labour, a midwife that said "what do you expect it to feel like, you're in labour" whilst offering to boil a kettle for a hot water bottle :(
And an epidural that worked on one side. They didn't believe me until I walked to the loo after having dd to have a wee!! Walked upstairs too (cause I'm a wimp and hate lifts!!!)

I truly believe that just has every pregnancy is different, every labour is different even for the same person.

DS1 was a hypnobirth, waters broke, mild contractions, was able to breath and visualise through them, spent time in the bath, DS arrived 5 hours later, whiff of g&a.

DS2 was completely different, I didn't attempt a hypnobirth as baby had had decels through my pregnancy so needed to be kept closely monitored and in case I needed an emcs I opted for an epidural at some point. My contractions started relatively mildly and within 2 hours ramped up to every 2 minutes but I was only 4cms and not dilating particularly fast. The pain I was experiencing at 4cms was the same pain I was experiencing at 9cms with DS1!

DS2 arrived after 8 hours. I am so glad I was able to have my epidural, from my point of view it wasn't excrutiating but I know full well it would have been had I not had the drugs.

I am eternally grateful that both my experiences were wonderful but can fully understand how women are totally scarred by the experience.

For me anyway labour was very painful but I could manage it because I knew why it was painful.
The third and four labour were much quicker so the exhaustion wasn't there which I do think makes it worse.
I recently was hospitalised with horrendous abdominal pain so similar to labour it was great waves of pain coming and going and I was crying and groaning and writhing and begging DH to knock me out just to make it stop. As DH had had the snip I knew it couldn't be labour and not knowing what it was, I think made it harder to cope with but also I didn't want to cope with it I just wanted it to stop.
Where as with my labours I wanted the baby out but was prepared to put up with the pain until it happened.
I also think state of mind can make a difference.
With DC4 I was very calm and relaxed at home just breathing through the pain and thought the contractions were strong enough for hospital. Hospital said no, I was a bit annoyed but still calm and put the phone down and went off to the toilet having another very strong but bearable contraction on the way.
On the loo I realised the baby's head was crowning and told DH to ring an ambulance. He started to panic and so did I and almost instantly the contractions felt unbearable. I am convinced that the panic made the pain worse.

Yanbu! First time I had an epidural, second time it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. My contractions and birthing the head wasn't that painful. Third time, I will never forget that pain of birthing the head or the second stage of labour. I felt like I was about to die. Time stopped, and everything seemed like it was in slow motion. It's the most terrible pain I have ever experienced and that's it for me. I couldn't imagine having a fourth baby now.

Without all the drugs it would of been painful for me! I remember my team of midwifes 1st said no prizes for being a Marta - 36hrs and basically being a glove puppet with all kinds of wires and trail wires attached inside to baby they hit me up with every drug poss and i have no shame in saying to anyone.

2nd time I'm kind of embarrassed to say i didn't even know i was in labour.

I think it's got nothing to do with pain thresholds.

I just think everyone has a different experience, some hurt and some don't so much.

We don't all have the same types of periods do we? I've never had a period pain in my life yet know people who couldn't walk during theirs. Same thing with labour IMO.