Giving birth - I wish I knew...

[inretrospect]

I wanted to put together a lift of the things that I'd wish I'd known before giving birth. I'm hoping that this can help me and others by talking openly about it.

I know a couple of FTMs (me included) who struggled a lot postpartum and I genuinely think that I would've felt a lot easier if I'd been more prepared about after the birth.

I'll start:

if you don't feel that OVERWHELMING love for your child as soon as they're placed on you, you are not a bad mother/heartless daemon. I will admit, it took me a while to form that "bond" that everyone talks about.

DD was placed on me after a 36 hour labour, episiotomy and ventouse. I looked at my big squished baby and went 'oh fucking hell she's ginormous' (wasn't actually that ginormous in hindsight - 8.7lb)

Anyone else?

I wish I'd known about or been offered diamorphine with my first. Pethadine was rubbish - made me puke all over my other half and wore off after about an hour. Diamorphine made the pain manageable and I was so bloody grateful for it with my second.

Wish I'd known about PND and how horrendous it would make me feel and how awful it would make the first few months. Wish I'd been prepared for it returning with my second, despite my best efforts.

I wish I hadn't beaten myself up about breastfeeding when it wasn't working. In fact, in general, I wish I'd just taken the pressure off myself.

I wish someone had told me that my ankles would swell up from fluid, was very sore!
And that you sweat heaps in bed after, for a few weeks.

And that breastfeeding isn't a miracle weight loss trick.

That filing babies nails with a filter machine is much easier than cutting them.
Until I learned to cut babies nails when they were asleep, much easier again.

I'm sure there are more.

Oh yes, pethadine was awful. The actual injection was two injections which was really painful in itself then the effects were awful. I was basically asleep In between contractions so didn’t really know what was going on but felt all the contractions, it didn’t help with the pain at all.

Then it made my newborn so sleepy that he slept for the first three days, didn’t take any milk and went back into hospital for failure to thrive.

Never again I said.

The next one, when we arrived at hospital the midwife said, “have you thought about pain relief?” We both shouted in unison, “no pethadine!”

Nobody mentions afterpains. Don’t know why not. If you have quite a few children you might get these and then they get worse with each baby. With my fourth the afterpains were worse than the labour. Worth it though.

Took me a good few months to properly bond with ds. Obviously I'd feed, change and hold him ect but I didnt even kiss him until he was about 3wks old. My pregnancy itself was fine apart from fainting a few times, but the labour was horrible. 3 days, 2 of which at home because so slow. Then midwifes ect basically told my dp to stay out my way. Ds wasnt breathing when born either. Then my stay in Hosp was nearly a week!
I needed stitched down below and most days cried.
Sex was painful after 8weeks
Haemmeroids have not gone since giving birth, or they've gone and come back rather.

That a c section would be a billion times worse than a vaginal delivery and would change my body forever

You do not have to consent to examinations, including internal examinations, during pregnancy or birth.

You have a choice. And your full, informed consent should be sought EVERY time.

That a c section would be a billion times worse than a vaginal delivery and would change my body forever
I'm so sorry to hear that but tbf it's very personal. My c section was fantastic and saved mine and my babies life.

All of these are personal 💁🏼‍♀️

firsttimempthergoose that’s exactly how I felt about pethdine! DH thought it was good for me because I slept but I could still feel everything and just felt really out of it, and I was totally detached from the pushing part. It was such a weird feeling, I hated it.

Second time around I was adamant no pethidine, I had a paracetamol and the birthing pool and it was a much better experience. But it was a much easier labour, if it was like the first I think I’d have gone for an epidural.

That you can have amazingly easy pregnancies, pain-free births, your body can spring back easily and breastfeeding can be a dream.

And that might make you the smuggest cunt in the world.

And then your child may have special needs. And you will struggle massively.

And not be such a smug cunt any more.

(It's all turned out well though!).

Genuinely surprised me how iwanttodieinsteadofthis painful it was. My first labour was painful but in a contraction start and stop type way so although the excruciating pain was there, it would stop after a while and then build up again but my second was so fast 1hr start to finish that there were no contractions, just instant, sudden and constant, completely unbearable pain. I would genuinely have killed myself if I could have done, I can remember it now, I couldn’t talk, couldn’t move and could only mutter ‘help me’. There was no time for pain relief. It was totally hideous and surprised me.

How quick you feel normal again after birth, within 30 mins, up and about, showering etc. That surprised me.

All of these are personal 💁🏼‍♀️
Yeah, fair one. Sorry. I just wasted so much time terrified of anything like a c section and I worry about anyone who is pregnant who reads anything that will make them worry about that too.

That breastfeeding is difficult and takes dedication and hurts like a motherfucker. I breezed through my c sections, it was the feeding that was hard. Well worth it though in the end.

With my first:

That being low risk doesn’t mean nothing can go wrong.

That you can’t have any drugs in a birthing pool.

That you can’t have any drugs once you get to 10cm dilated even if you stay that way for 5 hours .

That my body would take over.

That it’s possible for episiotomy stitches to split and get infected and that recovering from the birth would take months.

That I would be too tired to be able to hold a conversation for several weeks.

That I would feel like I’d been hit by a bus for about 4 months.

That babies cluster feed all night.

How lonely the world is when it’s just you and your newborn at 4am.

How miserable it is if you have a baby that cries constantly.

That breastfeeding would be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

How wildly undiagnosed tongue tie is.

That breastfeeding kills your sex drive.

That you can love a small person so fiercely but want a break from them so badly.

Most importantly, that you know when something is wrong and you know what’s best for your own baby.

With my second:

How exhausting looking after a toddler is whilst being pregnant.

How each pregnancy is different and how it affects your body is different too... hardly any stretch marks with DC1, stayed the same shape... loads of stretch marks with DC2 and now my body is totally different.

That being induced can be a good experience and having a more medicalised pregnancy and birth can be positive.

How fucking awful piles are!

That it is possible to find it much easier second time round despite having 2 kids to look after instead of 1!

That despite it all the baby would be so perfect for our family and make it complete.

That having a poo after a c sec felt like trying to push a baby out, I cried it was that painful and I don't cry ever.
When people ask if I felt like I missed out because I had to have a c sec, I remember that first poo and think no actually i dont feel like I missed out AT ALL!
(lighthearted. i know giving birth is different to having a very very painful poo)

I didn't know about the 5 day hormonal thing, I felt really depressed and tearful and felt awful for feeling like that

As above, I also didn't know I'd have to deliver the placenta!

The saying that as soon as you see your newborn you forget all about the pain you've just gone through. I didn't. In fact, I was in shock for a few days. 13 years later and the memory of that pain still haunts me!

Can I just say OP that I read FTM as you transitioning Female to Male and so having hormones etc and then getting pregnant as a transgender man....

So I thought you were a transman who then became pregnant and had a baby...

I have been puzzling about your post for sometime but now I realise you mean First Time Mum.

It has all clicked now 

Stickytoffeepudding that's NOT why I said you were arrogant - it was your assumption the thread only or majorly contained horror stories that was arrogant!

And a post that ends

"But I wasn't prepared for a reenactment of labour!"

I would consider a horror story.

I and others have posted positives too.

"No one ever writes on things like this that they were actually surprised it wasn't horrific." There's actually a good few posts on this thread that say exactly this!

"That it stings as baby is born was prepared for it to hurt but nobody ever told me it stings so was a bit of a shock." That surprises me. In my antenatal class we were told exactly that and the midwife running it started by getting everyone - including the men to stretch their mouth lips with fingers as hard as possible for a full 5 minutes (set a timer) and said that's what it feels like. A couple of the men who'd previously been "I don't know what the fuss is about" types piped down after that class 😂

Alltheprettyseahorses - about a month before I had dd I said to my mum "I've just realised there's an actual baby in there what an idiot I am" she said lots of women feel like that and she thought it was a thing nature (or whatever you believe in) did to make women focus on looking after themselves while pregnant. And it switches quite dramatically after birth which I found to be fairly true.

Something I think people do tell mum's to be but you can't "get it" until you are a mother - how amazed you are that your body is capable of growing an entire person with all the complex systems.

"Not every baby will be born healthy, despite all the screening and scans you have." Yes there's only so much they can check for. Dd was born lacking an enzyme which most of us naturally produce - she had to be given a series of injections to stimulate this, with a sprained ankle & squint (both of which I now know is related to her disability which wasn't Dx until years later). Also (and this was somewhat predictable) her blood sugar dropped through the floor (I'd had GD - which I don't get as I barely ate first 5 months due to horrendous nausea).

Firsttimemothergoose - known as birth aphasia, rare but happens. I had that briefly too. And I'm a blether to hell normally! Weirdly it DIDN'T panic me, then dh seemed SOMEHOW to twig I couldn't speak and asked me closed questions so I could nod or shake my head instead. What DID freak him out was when things were getting very dicey for dd and I and I apparently said "it's fine I know it's what needs to happen".

I wish I'd known to wait until after the midwife brings you a cup of tea and a mountain of luscious buttery white toast to start phoning everyone with the good news. DH left me half a slice. Bastard!

Midwives can be patronising and wrong. Sometimes first labours are fast.

It’s ok to not have a magical ‘here’s my baby’ moment when your baby arrives. Honestly I just thought thank fuck that’s over, I need a shower. The rush came three days later on the sofa breastfeeding at 2am, first time I’d really been alone with my baby and actually looked into their eyes.

The post labour shock shakes. Freaked my husband out. The day five massive rock solid boobs.

Fybogel is your friend for the first couple of weeks postpartum! Bananas and weetabix too. Clean yourself in the shower after a wee/poo rather than rubbing your sore bits.

Breastfeeding can be a beautiful thing. Read books, watch YouTube videos, buy tubes of Lansinoh to place around the house well before labour. There will be no time or brain space afterwards. And if it’s not a beautiful thing for you then that’s ok.

It can be overwhelming and tiring in a way that you had no concept of before. It really is a whole new world with higher highs and lower lows.

That seemingly doing nothing all day somehow takes up all the hours in the day. Those first few months are such a weird time warp.

You can’t imagine ever wanting to do it ever again and scoff at the thought of ever forgetting the pain and sleepless nights. And yet you do and a year later you’ll actually think it to be a great idea!

That the constipation caused by taking iron tablets would need to be shifted before the baby could come out.

Placental issues would be the first I would have liked to be more prepared about. I still remember after my first how annoyed I was that the third stage was like three tiny paragraphs in the NHS book and while I was aware of horrible things that could happen before birth, I kinda thought it would just slide out a bit after the baby if everything was fine. I didn't know it involved more horrible contractions or pushing or that while unlikely could take quite a while & apparently could have issues with size. I had midwives comment that it was big, no idea if it was a general remark as she sounded surprised or if that means something more but it did take way longer than I thought.

I was kinda surprised I didn't tear, on the positive side. My mother told about hers over and over (as had many other women), and while her recommendation to lean forward/hands on the floor afterwards helped for the mild grazes I had, it was nothing like the what I was afraid was going to happen. I know one of the issues I had in labour was emotional overwhelm at what I feared was going to happen and struggling with the pain and fears.

It might be nice to have figures like X% of women have no-mild tearing, X% have first degree and so on for common and less common after effects/complications - mainly because I am a numbers and spreadsheet person - but also because while we know labour has risks, it is kinda common portrayed that something horrible will happen and really, all four of my labours were pretty straightforward even if they didn't feel like it at the time and my placentas more often than not were a far bigger stress for me and afterwards was pretty straightforward though far more bedrest than the 'tied a baby to me and went back into the field' stories some of my older relatives shared. I very much think there needs to be a better way to explain there are risks without making probably natural feelings of overwhelm worse.

It hurts so much after giving birth as the womb contracts, each subsequent childbirth it gets worse, like having to go through contractions all over again.

How painful and difficult and shit BF is to start

My lord ! No wonder people give up

And how painful it is afterwards (episiotomy especially )

And how your milk doesn’t often come
In for days and you have a screaming newborn and barely any milk