To think labour can’t be THAT bad?

[Bumpingbumping]

Potentially being extremely naive, and of course this is excluding exceptional circumstances/emergency situations.

But aibu to think labour can’t be as horrific as people make out? I’ll be giving birth in 10 days time following an induction and everybody keeps asking me if I’m terrified and telling me how awful it will be.

Surely if it was THAT bad people just wouldn’t do it? Or would opt for a c section?

Again, feel free to hit me with the facts because I’m possibly being naive. But does anyone have any nice birth stories? Particularly following an induction?

Gas n air is what I would recommend.Its not harmful to the baby either.
Kills pain quire efficiently.

All my midwife and doula friends (admittedly 4 people ( grin but 11 births between them) have had home births or as intervention free as possible.

I’d be interested to know if they had their intervention free births before they chose their profession?
Makes sense if you had a great birth yourself that you would want to train as a doula and support women.
, I assume many women who found their own birth so horrific are unlikely to them train as a midwife, as it would be too close to home.
I for one know I would struggle to witness a natural birth because of my own and my feelings about it. If a good friend or family member asked me to be their birth partner, I’d have to say no.
I guess if I’d been lucky enough to sail through and found it that good, I may feel I wanted to support other women in labour.

Good luck OP. You'll get through it like we all do. I'd love you to come back and update us on how it went.

Lol @ csection being the preferred option, that doesn't reflect my experience

I was in so much pain during day 2 recovery that poor DH had to help me shower the day after, I couldn't do it. I could barely get out of bed to change nappies never mind reach and touch the shower nozzle or bend down for washing to avoid infection myself.

One of my most vivid memories of that hospital stay is crying on and off trying to shuffle out of bed for about 30 mins while dh went to grab food. He came back to bubs shrieking in the newborn crib, me hanging onto the bedrails in my own piss, having not made the loo in time (they took the catheter out about 8hrs after surgery on day 1), sobbing and begging for pain relief as they were running late and mine was overdue and the help button was the OTHER side of the bed than the side I was shuffling out of.
I also remember the searing, agonising post op pain in the middle of the night about 2 weeks later at home on a Saturday. At about 2am, when my infection at the incision site had progressively got really bad and I thought we should have gone to a&e but just made it (with lots of biting the inside of my own cheek in pain) to the Monday morning when I could get to the minor injuries place attached to the GP surgery that can do wound clean out, provide seaweed dressings & strong painkillers to get me through the next couple of recovery days to heal up.

Yes, definitely not an easy option, I still get shivers when I think about those first couple of weeks, and time has not faded it at all!!!

sugaredcube That’s a good question.
The doula definitely trained after 3 and maybe 4 of her 5 births.
Two of the midwives were practicing before they had their own children (one became more of a post birth midwife and then breastfeeding specialist because the shifts became too much once she had kids, the other stopped for about 10 years for the same reason and then refreshed her training and the-registered). The other started her training after her kids grew up. One of her pregnancies was incredibly complicated; her baby had an operation in utero and was in intensive care. That birth was a CS.

The first two had definitely attended very traumatic births: one had her hand in a woman’s uterus to stem a bleed all the way to hospital in an ambulance. Or something. But she went on to choose low tech birth as first preference.

I guess that midwives see the calm uncomplicated births that obstetricians do not, and have confidence from that.

They were realists though.

I am sorry you had such a traumatic time.

I assume many women who found their own birth so horrific are unlikely to them train as a midwife, as it would be too close to home.

I had a horrific first birth. Nothing like I wanted. Induction, interventions, ended up in HDU, was possibly a victim of obstetric assault. It is the reason I have chose to retrain as a midwife! I’ve debriefed fully, had some therapy, applied to uni, had another baby (that mostly went well, and I chose to go natural/pain relief free even though I “qualified” for an elective section after what happened last time). I’m starting my training in two weeks and looking forward to it SO much!

I suppose the problem is with these kind of threads no one knows until they try what their birth will be like. It is all anecdotal.
That’s why I believe c section should be an option even for first timers if they think they would prefer the Risks of a planned c section in comparison with labour and birth. No one will know how things will happen until afterwards. But a choice wouldn’t be a bad thing in my opinion.
Some people say their natural birth was awful. Some say they hated their c section.
Likewise others sail through labour and birth, and others find elective c section a very easy recovery.
I don’t suppose there is much to be gained by asking a wide audience of women for their experience, because no real conclusion can be drawn.

I do find the it odd that given after an induced labour, your chances of an unassisted birth are only 1/3, with 1/3 chance of emergency c section and 1/3 chance of forceps/ventouse, women aren’t given the choice of elective c section and to make up their own mind, rather than trying to find reassurance from the masses.

But then again what do I know 🤷‍♀️ I’m no expert and again I only really have these opinions because of my own experience.

It's different for everyone, my waters broke in the middle of the night, then had full on contractions every 3 minutes.
I didn't cope well, I had pethidine at 1cm, had and air at 2cm and an epidural at 3cm... This did take 12 hours overall though to get to having an epidural. They wanted to start the drip at that point to speed it up, and I refused until the epidural was in...

I loved the epidural. It was magic! Did end up with obstructed labour and an emergency caeserian another 12 hours on.

In the end, it doesn't matter, as long as you end up with a safe baby and a safe mum. Don't expect too much and don't have your heart set on a particular type of birth, that way lies disappointment! Good luck

My 1st labour was a very painful induction, 14 and a half hours of labour and an emergency section. My second (13 weeks ago) was spontaneous labour, 56 hours of contractions, 2 hours of pushing, then emergency forceps delivery. Both were at the highest end of the pain scale for me and I have a high pain threshold. But like a pp said, people say you forget the pain, you don't. It's just so worth it. Lots of luck.

Surely if it was THAT bad people just wouldn’t do it?

I never understand this line of thinking. I'm pretty sure no one goes back for more children because they just totally love labour so much.

All the best moments of my life came after and as a result of going through labour. That's the closest to a good thing I can say about it.

I hate the while 'it depends' thing but it does depend. On so many things! Luck mainly! My input would be whatever happens don't regard how you give birth as any reflection on how 'well' you've done. Any woman giving birth any way has done something amazing.
I wasn't dreading it at all but found my first unspeakably painful, but then I had no drugs. My second was fine, painful but totally manageable. Other friends of mine have had lovely planned sections, homebirths, hospital with drugs births. There's loads of options and it's not a performance that you do well or badly x

Mine was horrific, I actually screamed for a c section for hours and mooed like a cow. I was induced and apparently you can ask for the epidural to be put in (as in the needle bit so it's ready to go) before you agree to being induced. I had forceps and was cut without pain relief and not through bloody choice either. Not sure if that's true about the epidural but wish I'd known if it is! I'm only telling you this because you asked, I would normally make up a happier story but you obviously want the truth! Get the pain relief. For the love of god get the pain relief.Good luck. Xxxx

Yes. It is horrific. I was induced... 27 hours of labour. Never felt pain like it. As soon as I had the epidural then it was sweet relief. I wasn't allowed any pain killers before as I threw up after every contraction, and so had to be on a drip for 10 hours.
But worth it. I won't be doing it again. Ever. Episiotomy and ventouse birth... in a weird way I feel like I want to do it again?? Never going to happen but still!

I also mooed like a cow... I found it helped to make weird cow noises whilst face down on the hospital bed with my arse in the air...
so much for dignity!

I’d rather do labour than pregnancy, but that was my experience. You get what you’re given, my pregnancies were vile with constant sickness, 11 hour and 3 hour labours (on the happy meds) seemed like a walk in the park in comparison, but I know other have very different experiences and I also have a high pain threshold (according to midwives)

Please come back in 11 days and update us. Labour 1, 26 hours with epidural much harder than 2nd, 3 hours gas and air.
I have to admit second time around it wasn't that bad and I felt more in control, although there is the element of I think I'm dying at the time. Good luck

It depends greatly on the size and position of the baby, and on the size and shape of the mother’s pelvis. My baby was large and badly positioned and I literally thought I was going to die. I was immobilised by the pain, I couldn’t move and could hardly even breathe - they had to give me oxygen because I could barely draw a breath. The baby and I would both have died if I hadn’t had an emergency section. If I had to give birth again I’d insist on a planned section because I couldn’t go through that again. Then there are other women who just experience birth as a severe period pain 🤷‍♀️

Yeah it’s bad. Both of mine were textbook straightforward births, no intervention, no problems, quick labours. Hurt like fuck. I remember being in labour with dd1, flailing around in the birthing pool and thinking if someone came along and offered to shoot me, honestly I’d have gone for it. I actually had nightmares about the pain for years afterwards. Had another one, though she was unplanned. I’d say it’s all pretty grim but the things that are off the Richter scale pain wise are the two final pushes, the head and then the shoulders.

Having said all that, if everything is straightforward recovery is quick. I gave birth to dd2 at 6.15pm on the Saturday, was home by 11, walked to the pub for a roast at lunch time the next day, then the following day moved house!

I thought you were talking about Corbyn. (Wanders off to the politics threads....)

@Sugaredcube I very much agree with you!

C-section is in fact an option for first timers, and hospitals are supposed to offer maternal request sections for whatever reason, but some trusts don't really honour that and make it a real battle. I've been very lucky with my hospital and it's been no problem at all, but those that don't are supposed to refer you on to one that will. The organization BirthRights is very useful with this.

I agree with some other PPs that c-sections will become more widely used, in fact a recent study for the NHS said they should be offering more, they don't due to cost reasons (of the initial procedure) but the study found that there were actually considerably less long term complications with sections (obviously it's different if you are having one because something has already gone wrong).

Of course, it's each to their own but I am very happy with my planned C and honing my birth playlist as we speak. On the other hand, I have a friend who despite having had a very traumatic birth first time around wants to avoid a section because she has found she is very prone to post surgical infection. As you say, it's very difficult to generalize but we should have choice and shouldn't be made to feel that any type of birth is right or wrong.

I thought you meant JC. Yes he is that bad, but having a baby is not because the moment you hold baby in your arms you melt and pain seems not to matter anymore. Just accept all pain relief on offer. No point being a martyr.

Everyone told me that I’d be fine with the pain as I’d had gallstone attack’s and that’s supposedly one of the worst pains.

They were WRONG!!!

I thought you died before pain got as bad as it did in my labour. Genuinely didn’t know pain that bad existed. On a scale of 1-10 it was 200.

But equally I know people who sailed through labour so I think it’s all individual and nobody knows how their body will react until they experience it.

Contractions alone are obviously very painful. During the transition phase mine were so painful I wanted to die. The difference was that for my first this phase lasted about 6hrs. Long enough to feel like a slow excruciating panicked traumatic near death experience.For the second it was about 30mins. Just as painful but easier to get over as it was more like ripping off a bandaid.

Bluebells I mooed too! Definitely helped.

I haven't read all of the replies but I find it really offensive that you say 'just opt for a C section'.

You do realise that you have to have an injection in your spine that's v dangerous and then whilst you can't move and feel rather vulnerable someone slits through your insides? It's major surgery that needs 6 weeks recovery?

As for a natural birth my SIL ended up ripped to pieces with dozens of stitches. She's rather put off having another.

Have a go at both maybe and come back and tell us what a breeze it was after 😑