and that ones previously known pain threshold is irrelevant during labour/birth?
My DP has said several times that the only reason I had an epidural whilst giving birth to DS was because I 'have a low pain threshold, and can be a bit pathetic sometimes'. luckily for him, I'm keen on DS having a living father, so have merely been imagining ways to test his pain threshold, but is it true, do you think? he says that because some women manage with no drugs, it must just be my feebleness that made me cave after 2 days of hell irregular contractions. he's making me start to doubt myself, and think that i failed somehow by not managing 65 hours of labour, induction, forceps, episiotomy AND tear with merely a stiff upper lip.
I met a woman yesterday who had exactly the same crap comments from her husband, so my DP isn't alone in his views.
the thing is, i never normally use painkillers for anything, and a headache, even one which makes my sight go funny, doesn't send me screaming for drugs, whereas he takes ibuprofen at the merest hint of a headache. so I'd guess that normally I have quite a high pain threshold, but labour pains were a) quite different from any other pain i'd experienced before, and b) my labour hurt. a lot. the first 24 hours were bloody agony, but I managed it, the second 24 hours were unbearable, but I somehowe got through them. I felt like I was being squeezed and ripped in half by an angry giant with wolverine-like claws with every contraction. a friend, on the other hand, said her contractions were just like period pains right up until the end.
so, do some labours hurt more than others, do some people experience pain differently from others, or was I in fact a wuss who has in some way failed as a mother? (not that I'm pissed off about this or anything...)