What would YOU say was the most painful stage of labour?

[Dozeyland]

in regards to dilation, the babys delivery, contractions etc etc

If my memory serves me correctly, definitely transition - those last few minutes before getting the urge to push left me feeling shaky, panicky and out of control, but the pushing stage didn't hurt, and the crowning stage just itched rather than stung (and ds was 8lb 11 so not small)

I'm hoping my memory of the second stage is good, as this was 10 years ago and if I remember rightly, Dozeyland, we're both due a week on friday?

The most painful bit for me was about 3 minutes after dd was born, when she was in my arms and all was wonderful, the bloody midwife stuck an injection in my leg (some kind of rhesus neg thing) before the placenta was yanked out.

Made me jump that did.

The rest of it was fine, didn't have a transition, just went from waters breaking to wanting to push. Didn't hurt really, was like bloody hard work though.

Re stitches - don't they aneastetise (sp) you? Just stitch merrily away whilst you puff on (crap, useless) gas and air? Stitches down there without an anaesthetoc? I would punch someone, hard.

Crowning.

Never going to forget that

Transition in all 3 births...by a long stretch....

I did hypnobirthing and can honestly say that the contractions didn't hurt. Uncomfortable, yes, but very manageable indeed and at no stage during the 13hr first stage did I think 'ow that really hurts'. Pushing was not painful at all, just bloody hard work and I was at it for 6 hours on and off . Crowning I had a hazy awareness of but it wasn't agony, possibly cos of long 2nd stage. I had a small labial tear which, admittedly, did hurt, but only when I wasn't careful about sitting down or getting up, or stood up for too long. Maternity pads were my friends!

HTH

I heard somewhere that fewer women are reporting the scary, shaky fear that is meant to come at transition, purely because they are better mentally prepared for it (by classes, I presume). I certainly don't remember it except as an intense bit of labour.

sarahlou8 yeah a week Friday! my first!

I wanted to try hypno-birthing but a bit too late now. where i've had such a good pregnancy i've not even thought about preparing other tanstaying calm (as calm as can be - especially now with 1 week 2 days to go!)

The last stages of dilation were pretty intense.

I think the pain of child birth is really wierd, excruciating but at the same time manageable.

At the crowning part the MW offered to cut me and I was well up for it.

The bit I found hard was the couple of weeks afterwards when I felt different parts of my body were completing with each other to be the most sore. They don't give you gas and air for that.

But hey I'll be doing it all again in Jan and once again I'm aiming for just gas and air if possible.

Transition here too. I didn't know that's what it was first time round, suddenly felt overwelmed, shaky and the pain got worse. The midwife was great at calming me down, getting me to use my breathing again. Despite thinking I was pretty well prepared, with hindsight I don't think I had a clue what was happening in labour - but then I didn't realise that I was pushing after that either (just thought they were contractions with 'pressure' ). The baby just appeared!. It was not, as my mother told everyone, a pain-free birth though.

Second time round I did hypnobirthing, it was quick too, and the pain was all manageable. I did experience transition again - I started to shake, but no fear etc as I knew it meant it was almost all over time to meet my baby. Knowing I was likely to be quick helped an enormous amount.

OP - it won't be like anything you've ever experienced before. But whatever happens, you will be a She-Ra for getting through it and then the long journey of being a mum to a little baby starts. The birth is just one (well, maybe two or three) day(s), but the bit afterwards lasts for ages.

Crowning (literally made my eyes water). Having the stitches after came a close second.

But even though they were the most painful, it was very short lived pain. I found the sheer exhaustion of contractions much more difficult to deal with (4 days worth of them with DS )

First time I had a long one and an epidural and ventouse - so felt nothing til crowning and then thought someone had shoved a football up my fanjo, all of a sudden. Awful pain, I think made worse because of the epidural as there had been no build up of pain, and I had been awake about 40 hours so was very, very tired.

Second time, it was all over in just over an hour from the first contraction, so tbh, all I could think of was get me to the hospital rather than any pain. I had DD standing up, no time to get onto bed. Just about got my pants off, midwives caught her as she dropped to the floor just in time.

Contractions at 5-10cm. For my third I must have gone from 5-10 in no time as he was born in the car. Set off merrily chatting away to DH with the odd 40 sec contraction, 10 minutes later an almighty long contraction for 5 mins (is that transition??) then I needed to push. He was born in the car in the Hospital carpark

Transition for me too. I was pleasantly surprised to find that once I got to pushing it really wasn't as bad as the pre-pushing bit (disclaimer: for me . And obviously it still hurt. But I'd been expecting crowning/delivering the head to be the worst bit, so there was a huge surge of relief and empowerment at realising that actually I'd already done the worst bit).

I'm hoping I'll cope better with transition this time as I'll know what it is, but probably I'll be just as irrational when I get there.

It isn't 'hippy' to say that massaging the base of the spine and breathing through contractions help - it's TRUE for enough women and we are just not all hippies or earth mothers.
It really depresses me that there's this stereotype!
Both of those things helped me immensely.

at about 5/6 cm. The contractions were really surprisingly painful. But bearable with gas and air. MW told me they would not be getting any worse, just closer together. That really helped, as I knew I was coping without pain relief, and I knew then that I could do this.

Having relaxed a little at this news, I dialated very quickly and had a baby in my arms within an hour.

i did not experience any ramp up of pain on transition- just contractions very close together without a lot of recovery time in between. it made it feel like the contractions were worse, but they werent - there was no time to catch breath and regroup ones emotional reserves.

I did not tear on crowning, although a little bruised as they fair shot out! Crowning was lovely - I could feel my children moving down the canal and while uncomfortable, it was not painful. The end bit stings like a bastard, but it is not painful as such.

My coccyx breaking as she was pulled out. Even with epidural I remember the pain and cracking sound.