to want to slap the girl on 'one born every minute'?

[HoopsIsGettingMassive]

in the title really, she is really making a meal of it!!

nope, when I have had mini-hoops I will come back on and tell you all, am not ashamed, if I do act like Sam I will tell you.

It is something I am actually looking forward to as it is something I haven't experienced yet......

I will admit I thought Sam didnt cope well - screaming her head off at 2cm dilated! - BUT we all have very different levels of pain tolerance and perhaps she was just suddenly overcome by the idea that she was about to be a mum? Her poor partner though!

I had my 2 ds with no pain relief apart from TENS but let me tell you at 8cm an epidural started seeming like a great idea! Especially with ds2 as I was in labour for 3 days and very tired.

Joy was difficult to warm to, but I liked her husband very much. I kept trying to tell myself she was really fed up having been in hospital for 4 days and nothing happening and I think she was also starting to worry about the realities of being a mum.

Still didnt like her, though!

Yes, gaelic, I definitely went with the forceps delivery for the drama effect of it. It was great fun, shivering in pain and throwing up (again, I never screamed in that labour) all night waiting for my epi.

I moved around. I got on the ball. I went in the bath. I got on my fours.

Still hurt like a mutha. Was dire.

"Still hurt like a mutha. Was dire"

Well, it is isn't it? You'd never do it if you didn't get a baby at the end would you?

Childbirth is pretty hideous - it makes sense to get it over with as quickly and efficiently as possible, which is why it's not a good idea to spend too much time lying flat on your back screaming and crying (if you can possibly help it!)....

I was 'trapped' at hospital for three days once with suspected pre-eclampsia. It was the most boring time of my life. No iPhones and iTouches then. I had about one book, which I read very slowly and some old magazines. Meals weren't good and often failed to turn up because I'd arrived after they needed ordering.

I was not in a happy place. I was quite demanding to my husband, begging for salads, books and shower gel to make tolerable. I know where Joy's coming from.

see that's the thing though, no one really emphasises to you that you shouldn't spend alot of time on your back. No MW recommended not lying on my back on the run up to giving birth.
this time round I'm lying on my left side loads! esp at night.

Bloody hell!

Women seem to want the whole circus around childbirth.

Are you having a laugh?

If I could pop upstairs and pop out the kid and go back down again without anyone noticing I would.

I HATE the whole thing around childbirth. I hate discussing my pg, I hate being examined I hate the whole bloody palava.

Child birth hurts. If it doesnt its because you are lucky not because you are clever.

Anymore than if you manage to conceive easily you are any cleverer than someone who takes a lot longer.

Right, can everybody please stop this "she's only 2cm" crap? Please, FGS. For some women, quite a lot actually, the early stages of labour are equally as painful, sometimes more painful, than the later stages. Dilation has bugger all to do with it quite frankly, whatever it might suit MWs to believe so that they can leave women suffer alone.

If I had been begging for pain relief at 2cm purely because I was a wimp, I would never have made it through the next 14 hours with nothing but G&A after I got to 6 cm (which I couldn't use because I could barely breathe by then). Would I? Or would anyone care to contradict me?

Do some women experience continuous agonizing pain? Other than when in transition, I mean. Because what I found a bit about Sam was how she seemed to be in agony even between contractions. I have been in labour 4 times and I am as wimpish as the best of us when it comes to pain, but I clearly remember there being breaks between the contractions. The poor girl really did need her mum there. I thought everything her mum said and did with her was brilliant, right down to being there for her when she had to have the CS.

Transition and pushing was quite possibly the easiest part of my labour pain-wise, relatively speaking - and it's all relative, it was still hellish.

My waters broke at around 2cm dilation and from then on the pain was continuous. I could barely support my own weight the pain in my legs was so bad. The contractions were even worse, of course, but the pain never ever went away. I never ever experienced this fabled relief between contractions that is supposed to characterise labour pains. I'm guessing that Sam didn't either.

I did find her annoying, but not at her!

I found her annoying in the sense that she was screaming lol, but that's it.

she did not get any support at all.

My births were horrendous, even tho I got support, I needed emergency induction both times (placenta stopped functioning at 38 weeks and 41 weeks) both also ended up with me having a spinal and emergency forceps delivery (heartbeats dropped to 40) their was no time for emergency c-section.

Both babies I have ended up having 4th degree tears and also repair surgery (having te 1st of 3 next month).

If I had been in the girls situation I would be very very scared, she had no support at all!

Ah that is very interesting. Pain for me was never continuous, not even during transition. I can still remember the feeling of utter dread as a new contraction began - I had a split second of awful anticipation of what was to come.

I didn't relate to her thrashing about in pain either. My response to pain always has been to lie very very still. But as you say, we are all different.

Gutter i think she was having lots of very short contractions very close together. Thats why she seemed to be in pain all the time.

I had that with my first and it was bloody exhausting.

Its also very demoralising because those short sharp contractions are not very affective. I had more than one MW tell me I couldnt be in pain because the contractions were not really doing anything.

At least with the longer one you have a bit more time inbetween each one to 'forget' how much the sodding hurt.

gaelic couldnt agree more with the whole 2cm thing. Why do so many people insist that it doesnt hurt until you are in 'proper' labour?

Why do people think women are making a fuss about nothing? Why are they disbelived when they say it really hurts? I dont disbelive a woman who says she had a few twinges and her baby virtually dropped out just because that didnt happen to me!

It does get easier - generally speaking - chegirl (trying to encourage you!) I am terrified of pain and cannot say I enjoyed a single moment of any of my labours but I later regretted wasting so much time in my last pregnancy dreading the labour as it only lasted a few hours but I had ruined months fretting about it.

I think I was the opposite chegirl. They reckoned (after the event of course) that I was contracting really really strongly right from the off. They were certainly surprised when they found I'd got to 6cm while they'd been busy ignoring me. Also my contractions never got closer together than 3 minutes at any stage - thank Christ or I'd have died, I swear. On that basis I reckon I must have been doing at least twice the work as normal on every contraction. When the pain doesn't go away in between that is also blardy exhausting!

'I had more than one MW tell me I couldnt be in pain because the contractions were not really doing anything.'

Me too.

I just don't get all this rhetoric that gets spouted around childbirth. It is well known that labour pains are pretty much the worst pain a human being can experience without dying. There is no other area of life where people are routinely expected to just get on with it. Would anyone be agreeing to have a tooth extraction without pain relief? A limb amputation without pain relief? Why oh why is childbirth treated so differently, and why are women who admit to feeling this perfectly normal pain made to feel so damned pathetic? Agonising pain in childbirth is NOT abnormal, it is normal (within a hugely variable range of normality) and it is utterly stupid and irresponsible for anyone to suggest otherwise.

Thanks for the encouragement Gutter. I am due number 4 birth child in a few weeks. I had DS3 2 years ago but previous had a 15 year gap. Let me tell you, all the stuff about your 'body remembering' aint true .

Heres hoping body remembers better after a shorter gap.

My pain relief choices are limited because I want another HB. If I was going in to hospital I would be demanding an epi on arrival.

'Do some women experience continuous agonizing pain? Other than when in transition, I mean. Because what I found a bit about Sam was how she seemed to be in agony even between contractions. I have been in labour 4 times and I am as wimpish as the best of us when it comes to pain, but I clearly remember there being breaks between the contractions.'

If you've read the entire thread, yes yes some women do, like my friend sweetkitty, who's had one hospital birth, two homebirths and going for a third.

Dilates quickly and as a result has labour as one big contraction, was fobbed off like Sam for being only 1cm dilated and put in a room and then was pushing, with a first, in record time.

yes the "chinese" woman did need a slap ...however i agree with her regarding the food as she is diabetic...not acceptable to make her wait as she had taken her injection....everything else...slapslapslap u miserable cow!!

'There is no other area of life where people are routinely expected to just get on with it. Would anyone be agreeing to have a tooth extraction without pain relief? A limb amputation without pain relief? Why oh why is childbirth treated so differently, and why are women who admit to feeling this perfectly normal pain made to feel so damned pathetic? Agonising pain in childbirth is NOT abnormal, it is normal (within a hugely variable range of normality) and it is utterly stupid and irresponsible for anyone to suggest otherwise.'

Applauds gaelicsheep!

I know my body, I've always been, as a dancer to begin with, incredibly in touch with my body and my mind (as a yoga practitioner) and my soul (as one who sees dead people ).

And I knew, knew, knew, with DD1 and DS, that something wasn't quite right. I never got that sense with DD2, hence, I showed up a hospital with only a lip of cervix between her and the world and gave birth to her within 20 mins. on all fours.

So what? Could things have been different? They are what they are. FFS. Clue no. 1 to moving on spirits, you did/do what you feel is right where you are and that is that, it becomes the past and that is to let go because we are no longer there. It is right because at the time it was. See otherwise, all who are in good conscience, and you are trapped (you'd be amazed how many people die with opposite mindsets and then come to me!).

I don't get the judgements or the 'if she'd only known, things could have been different.'

That matters nowt. She needed what she needed at the time. She reacted as she did, quite possibly there was a reason for that.
It matters not whether we know or don't.

pregnantpeppa - I think maybe your post just disappeared into cyberspace. If a post is deleted then it will generally have a statement to that effect in its place. Rant away - it's so frustrating isn't it?!

Apologies expat. You can't expect me to have read the whole thread though

(Have read most of it, on and off, since Tuesday though).