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

[HoopsIsGettingMassive]

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

BUNNY: Didn't her birth experience just perfectly illustrate the 'cascade of intervention'. Throw the drugs into her and numb her from the waist down. Then surprise surprise the baby's heartbeat decelerates and suddenly there's 'no choice' but to have a section

OK......so what else would you suggest then? People dont have epirdurals for fun!

leave her screaming in agony at a mere 2cm? It would have been inhumane to have refused her pain releief in my opinion

Belgo, that's really sad - your poor mum.

'It would have been inhumane to have refused her pain releief in my opinion '

I think they leave women who request them too long, anyhow.

She got lucky, really, that it was daytime and not completely manic on the unit.

So many of us on here have begged and begged and quite a few wound up not getting one at all because it was too late by the time an anaesthetist got to them.

Once she got pain relief she started dilating much more quickly. Perhaps there's an argument that giving her some pain relief earlier she'd had progressed better and been able to deliver naturally?

But we'll never know because that wasn't an option. They just left her screaming for ages and then some stupid doctor wanted to give her "half pain relief". Why?

Thank goodness the sister poured a healthy dose of scorn on that suggestion.

What is half pain relief?!

What a knob!

I had an extremely sympathetic anaethetist with DS, kept reassuring me. Consultant was brill, too.

OTOH, the lady who did the epi for DD1's birth was a cow.

Missed it. I think that's a good thing as I'd have had no patience. I'd have been barking orders at the TV and FFSing like mad I'm not good with people who are sick/suffering. I expect everyone to be a trooper and just get on with it. DH tells me I have no empathy. Probably right.

Whatever you do don't give birth in other than daylight hours as there will be no food available ime. Lovely midwife managed to find some cream crackers and dairylea for me after the birth of DD3 at 1.00am. Other than that it was the awful drinks machine until breakfast time.
On the other hand I threw up every bit of food and drink I had during all three births. And the tea and toast produced imediately afterwards.
I liked Joy moaning 'and you are going to get burger king aren't you?'

I was wondering what had happened to Eddie Izzard recently, clearly he is now working on recpetion in the Princess Anne

Miaow, Buckle! (But spot on..)

Last weeks episode was so much better than the one last night. I'm not sure I want to watch the last episode if they are just going to show a fairly clueless unprepared young girl being overcome with fear. I imagine her Mum did the right thing being quite harsh with her as she needed someone to stop her being hysterical.

As for Joy, why are people being so harsh. FOUR DAYS in a hospital just hanging around and waiting for labour to start!!! Waiting for labour to start is bad enough at the best of times. What a nightmare. It sounded like her choice was wait for hospital food or Burger King. Eating a balanced meal was obviously worrying her and her partner which is why he suggested the banana rather than the chocolate.

I hope next week has more balanced birth stories.

I didn't think anyone was being harsh about Joy growingweeble, we were all sympathising with the lack of good (any) food and her husband's insistence on fruit over chocolate, he was lucky she didn't throw it as his head.

The bit where he suggested having a look at some chocolate has to go down in TV history - priceless! The man must have a death wish...

Ha ha Eddie Izzard

I have to admit that I did skip a lot of posts and read the ones mostly at the beginning... but they were harsh!

I think that that girl should have been given pain relief ASAP to calm her down. She was so scared and totally out of control, just sort of leaving her to get on with it was counter productive.

I had a back-to-back labour and it was a nightmare until I had my lovely, lovely epidural and pethidine - and then it was bloody brilliant. And I still kept hold of the G+A

Joy and her pillow rant was really funny!

I felt all broody after watching it!

When you are in terrible, excrutiating pain with a labour that it atypical and a baby that is never in a million years going to come out in teh normal fashion without some sort of instrumental intervention, the notion that someone simply coming along giving you a stern look and telling you to "get a grip" or "snap out of it" will make the labour progress more smoothly is just ridiculous.

The fucking Queen could have come along and told me to "get a grip" and it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference. I was in just about as much pain as I could ever be in.

It is true that women are just expected to endure this level of pain and have to put up with being told to "get a grip".

Would a woman be expected to undergo a c-section without any form of anaesthetic? No of course she wouldn't but I'm sure that if I had, the pain couldn't have been much worse than I'd already been enduring for the preceeding 24 hours.

i missed it last night as dd wanted to watch shamless where can i see it on repeat

YABVVU and also very nasty Hoops.

Thanks god for Bertiebotts, Standanddeliver and the others on this thread who have actually shown some empathy and humanity. All I saw last night was a very young girl in excruciating agony who was more terrified than she has ever been. Do you honestly think she is screaming and thrashing about because she wants to? Why on earth would you want to slap someone who is scared and in pain? And how brave and amazing you are that you were not like this in labour .

Pain is extremely subjective and no-one has any right to dictate how someone should behave. Like Sam I was in sheer agony at 1cm dilated and ended up with ventouse and a near emergency c-section. There is another poster on the Telly Addicts thread who was actually in tears at comments like this because she had a similar experience and nasty comments like this made her feel like a failure.

After I gave birth and was discussing it with a friend of a friend who had also just had a baby, she said to me that she had very little pain because she wanted her baby to come out which is why she only had 4 hour labour. Me on the other hand. Apparently I had so much pain and intervention because I didn't want my baby to come out and it was all my fault. WTF? I think no-on has the right to judge another womans labour. Ever. It is uneccessary and downright nasty

YABVU the 20yo was trying her best. some of us don't just pop out babies easily you know - it's a very exhausting and also a very frightening time, esp the first time. have a heart, and at least try and understand that some of us don't have a high pain threshold.

I was a nightmare during labour, not quite to that extent but had no control over it. when you are pain, you are not yourself.

This thread has given me all the comfort in the world as to why I had an El CS.

To ALL those who have left harsh comments on this thread: It's not a fucking competition. So some people find it hard, some find it impossible and some freak out.

I'm in awe of pretty much most people who give birth naturally. I buckled at the mere thought of it. It really irks me that there are people out there who seem to think that they are better because it went OK for them.

There but for the grace of God, Ladies.

meant to say, when you are in pain, you definately aren't yourself. I also want to note that I'd had a back-to-back labour, one of the worst, it was a sloooooooooooooooooooooooooow process until I actually met my baby in the end. It went on forever the contractions.

I get severely hacked off with all these mums that make out people who scream in pain (yes even if only 2cms dilated) are doing it for attention. They don't. It's because you are s**t scared of what is going on.

hear hear harimosmummy!!

I simply despair of there ever being any improvements in birth experiences when so many women are happy to dismiss the agony of other women as making a fuss or down to being poorly educated about the birth process.

There is an eye-opening lack of compassion, humanity and kindness from so many posters about the birth experiences of other women.

When it comes to giving birth, we were not all made equal.

I want to slap you, OP.

Earthstar - I absolutely agree with your post.

This sort of mindset is (IMHO) responsible at least in part for the rise of CSs.

I know it was one a driver for me (I went private to get the El CS I wanted) and, when I read crap like this, I'm glad I did.

I think I would have been terrible at childbirth - I'm not good when I don't feel in control - and I don't think I would have made a good hash of it on the NHS!!