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?

Varies massively from person to person and from pregnancy to pregnancy. I have a friend who shelled out her first 3 DC like peas from a pod and was all "What's the fuss about?".... until number 4 was back to back.

Also, some women feel unwell during labour whereas some feel fine in themselves but "just" have pain. I think that makes a massive difference - if you are vomiting/nauseated/have a terrible headache, it's much harder to cope with even moderate pain.

Depends on the labour
My first was fairly standard but had epidural second was back to back
It was fucking horrendous but you do forget the pain

It's harder to mind them that the real shock

But yes yabu

Another one who thought this was about a Corbyn government . I'd rather go through childbirth again.

Mine was fine really - I was fully dilated before I got to hospital, and from there it was more an odd mix of anxiety and boredom until DD was born. Actual pain - probably 30 minutes or so? And the gas and air was great. It was significantly easier than my last karate grading, and with less shouting. But from talking to others I think the best you can do is go in with an open mind and take help if you need it.

I'm not sure what you're going to get out of this thread really. People who've had relatively easy labours will tell you "it's fine" and people who had more difficult labours will tell you "it's horrendous" because people can only speak from their experience. I don't understand the period pain analogy at all because for me it was nothing like that either time but I guess for some it must be!

For what it's worth, my first was fucking horrendous. Like you, I thought "it can't possibly be that bad" but it really was. I was in labour for 36 hours. Gas and air made me violently sick, I wasn't allowed pethadine and the epidural didn't work- which I didn't even know was a possibility but there you go! I honestly can't find the words to describe what the contractions felt like but I do vividly remember wishing I was dead just to make it stop. I tore even though baby was small, small enough to need a few days SCBU. Afterwards I was completely shell-shocked, people say "you forget the pain as soon as the baby's out" but I bloody didn't! It was so awful we waited four years for the next one because it took me that long to get over it.

Second one was ok though. Obviously the contractions were still painful in the later stages but they definitely felt manageable and for most of the labour I would have said it was discomfort rather than pain. Actually pushing the baby out was still bloody agony but not as bad as the first one and no tearing this time. The whole thing was 19 hours start to finish and the pushing stage was only five minutes so nowhere near as exhausting as my first which made a huge difference. All in all I would say it was a nice labour, if such a thing exists.

Every labour is different so you just have to tell yourself that it'll probably be fine and if it's not, you're in the hands of highly trained people who know what to do.

Please read one of the (many) trauma threads before posting further op:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3671861-to-think-that-having-a-traumatic-birth-experience-makes-the-idea-of-having-a-second-pretty-terrifying ( 1 example)

Labour was a breeze compared to afterwards - when you are bleeding and sleep deprived and hardly know which way is up, and they hand you this precious seven pounds of vulnerability and tell you to go home and keep it safe and look after it.

THAT'S the hard bit.

It IS that bad. But you won't care once it's done and you'll do it again to get what you get at the end of it. It's worth every second 😊

Mine was long and horrifically painful. Gas and air.

27hrs of hormone drip induced contractions followed by a crash emergency csection leads me to beg to differ. Ive not had another and my DS is almost 7.

Vaginal delivery recovery is far easier than recovery from the major debilitating surgery that is a section.

That's too simplistic. Straightfoward vaginal delivery maybe but not everyone has one of them. Plus neither of emergency sections was debilitating in the slightest once the drugs wore off. We are all different.

Part of the reason I struggled so badly with my first emcs was that I had internalised it as failure and then expected to suffer hugely with all the pain and issues which were all I heard about post c-section...but my experience was so totally different it felt (I did have a whole bunch of mental health issues) I couldn't even do that bit right.

At the time I thought my labours were bad, but in comparison to others they were not at all. My first was around 4 hours and the second was too fast and left me very shocked. It was very painful because I did not have time for pain relief. Having said that, it seemed easier and faster because I could feel the pain and it was as though my body was telling me what to do.

I would much rather have the short term pain than the months and months of horrendous sickness I had with my pregnancies. Any day of the week I would pick the labour. Make of that what you wish.

Other posters are right, you will wonder why you are suddenly having period pain, lower back pain. It was a bit like when you are young with your periods and you got really bad period pain and had to go to bed. That is what it is like.

I found the contractions worse than the delivery as well. It is hard work, called labour for a reason and when the midwife asked me if I felt like I had a rugby ball in my back passage, she had it spot on.

You've also got to remember that when people say they are in labour for 12.18,24 hours whatever that often you are already down a nights sleep. Then you are awake for a really really long time

If you are not induced your body tends to produce endorphins to help you with the pain afterwards, even when you have an epidural. That’s why women tend to forget the physical agony of childbirth. (the PTSD some women can get after a traumatic experience or if they / their babies almost die is something else). When you’re induced your body often doesn’t have time to produce these endorphins and the pain from the induction contractions is often worse and so it can be a more traumatic experience. But if you’re sensible about the pain, taking relief when required, you should be ok

Yes, childbirth is painful. However, there are wonderful pain relief meds that will make it very tolerable - there are no prizes for refusing medication! Best wishes with the birth. x

.. and as an example, having PTSD counselling on the NHS, medical negligence and botched repair work along with maternal and/or infant fatalities, well, yes, it can be pretty fucking horrendous, and trivialising women's experiences (which aren't rare 1 off anomalies) helps no one.

Depends. Some people are lucky some arent. I was one of the lucky ones. Intense but over quick. Its worth it 1000 times over. Prefer to have labour that go through c section and have the complications my friends had but again everyone different.

Everyone's labour is different, so people on here telling you its hideous or fine won't help.

If it helps - an older friend who used to be a midwife told me they were taught that when they had to do an episiotomy, if there was no time to sort out pain relief, they would try to aim to cut on the peak of the contraction "wave", as the woman was already in so much pain, it wouldn't register as much. So there you have it, it hurts to the level that someone taking a pair of scissors to your fanjo wont register, due to the pain you are already in.

Also you forget quickly, being handed a baby is such an amazing feeling, you sort of instantly forget the insane pain only a few moments before.

I honestly thought the same as you before ds1

It was free from complications, and very fast, so no meds

I think I went into shock and panicked during labour, possibly because I was so mentally unprepared. I couldn't process how much more awful it was than I had anticipated. It wouldn't have been less painful, but I think being mentally prepared for next one (coming soon!) may help in terms of not being frightened. But who knows!!

No it's not that bad or nobody would ever do it again.

I'm sorry to be so useless but this is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string". Every labour is different. Every woman is different.

A good way of getting your head around that is to ask women very specifically what their labour felt like. You find they tend to describe very different sorts of pain, in varying intensities, in different parts of their bodies, at different points in their labour, and for varying lengths of time.

It's a lottery OP. Maybe yours won't be that bad? Who knows. Good luck

two inductions and intense as v little gap between contractions but gas and air was enough for me. the actual bit where the baby is coming is v painful but shortlived before you have squishy baby cuddles.

Saw the thread title and was expecting it to be about Jeremy Corbyn

I used to think this before giving birth. I had considered myself to have a reasonably high pain threshold. WRONG! The contractions were the worst pain I’ve ever experienced but the pushing bit was fine (apart from the humiliation of shitting myself of course). I would do it all again in a heartbeat though but would opt for all the drugs. Good luck to you 💐

There are so many factors that affect both the birth and how you feel about it, it’s not just a physical process it’s mental and emotional too. You could have a physically easy birth but feel negatively about it if you don’t feel supported, listened to and in control. You could have a physically traumatic birth and feel positively because you are informed about what’s happening, supported and well cared for.
Factors vary so widely, your physical health, mental health, emotional support, pain threshold, how in control you feel, how prepared you feel, how informed you are.
With all of mine I was fine until it was time to push, then I needed gas and air and the pain was immense but it doesn’t last long, I lost quite a bit of blood after my first but it barely registers with me, I bled it was stopped. I had an easy time, fairly short labours, healthy children and recovered very quickly but not everyone is that lucky. Whatever happens keep in my mind that it will end, the pain will not last forever, pain relief is available, being as calm as possible will benefit you and at the end of it you will have a lovely little baby.