How did you feel post-birth?

[LikeAnAdventCandleButNotQuite]

During the last few weeks of pregnancy, I was soooo looking forward to being able to reach my feet, get up easily out of bed and walk faster than 1 mile an hour.

But, I didnt realise quite how knackered I'd feel after giving birth. Im not expecting to be able to do cartwheels, or run marathons, but, I just feel like i've been put through a mangle!

How did you all feel in the first week after giving birth?

DS is nearly 2 and I am still shattered :)

Same as Showofhands after an emcs. In pain, spaced out (strange reaction to pain killers I think now), anxious, exhausted, a bit useless and no appetite. Took months to feel right again. Sort of puts me off having another.

I felt too scared to poo

That I'd never sleep again, that my boobs would never be my own again and I couldn't believe that I'd has the most beautiful precious liitle boy with the biggest waste of space wan*er in the world.

well 10 years on my boobs are mine unless I choose to share them with a man

I have definatley pooed since and it is no longer a scary prospect

and I get my full 8 hours every night. f

I was right about having the best baby with the biggest waste of space and we haven't been together for about 9 and a half years

Dd1 - felt fab after an amazingly straight forwar and quick birth. Found breastfeeding really easy and just loved being a mum. Downside was the terrible sleep deprivation. She would wake without fail as soon as I got in to bed and was an awful sleeper (8 yrs on and she loves her lie ins).

Ds1 - felt great after another quick birth (this time at home) . The thing I found hardest was the emotional impact it had on myself and dd1. Suddenly she wasn't the centre of our attention anymore and this was quite upsetting at first.

Dd2 - so, so happy to no longer be pregnant again. another straight forward home birth. Dc3 was born the night before dc2's 4th birthday, so I had to be up and ready for presents etc the next day so he wouldn't feel that his birthday was over shadowed. We even hosted a little tea party with a few close family and friends!

DS-As others have said, like I had been through a mangle and in complete and utter shock.

DD- Euphoric

Felt euphoric for a day or so afterwards, like I could run a marathon. Then the sleep deprivation and baby blues kicked in and I felt so tired and achy. The midwife came to see me a couple of days after dh had gone back to work after ds3. I was up feeding in the night and then getting up at some unearthly hour to get a 4 year old, 2 year old and a newborn ready to take the eldest to school 1.5 miles away. When she asked how I was I cried and begged her to put me on bed rest.

like I had been kicked in the arse by a horse, and then a very achy back for several weeks.

Mangled, and we've never had another one. DH just couldn't face it -we had a planned home birth which turned into three day prelabour induction in the hospital, with half hour monitoring (in a ward with 10 screaming women and their snoring DH's at night = no sleep), proper 5cm labour for a day, with pethidine (yuck) and then after many interventions, drip and epidural, foetal blood sampling,
ended up in theatre with cack handed registrar and a very panicked 30 second crash section with huge incision, as babe basically wasn't very alive: babe whisked away without me seeing her, and Dh pale as his scrubs at the blood and guts of it - I lost a lot of blood, BP went down and I went into shock. Hospital staff were burnt out and hostile and bf was torture.

It was hideous from start to finish - I was anaemic for ages too, and had PTSD, and a year of intensive physio. I also was amazed at how physical the whole thing was - and how unclean everything was - and how strange I smelled - milk, blood, sweat, tears and watery lochia.

All in all one will do me fine too - seven years on all I wish is that I had cooked more dinners to freeze!! DD's birth doesn't seem to be so important to me now.

Oh BTW, Happy Christmas /Chanukah to everyone!

All 3 times I was ecstatic just to be longer pregnant! (I HATE pregnancy)

The sleep deprivation and the weepiness kicked in later!

Gah- NO longer pregnant!

1st time - like I'd run a marathon, and won it. By the time the baby arrived I'd figured out why it's called "labour"! It was a very long labour but there were no complications, and it felt like "pain with a purpose" and I never thought it was going to get the better of me. I was exhausted but really glad it was over, glad not to be pregnant, glad to have my baby to hold at last.

2nd time - I must have been OK I guess, because it never crossed my mind to think about how I felt. Baby was seriously ill and I was back and forth to the hospital constantly, and when I wasn't doing that I was hooked up to the breastpump. At least because I didn't have a baby to look after (and my dh stayed off work to look after our 7 year old) I was able to get plenty of rest - I needed to express every few hours but that could be done to a schedule, so I KNEW I could have my few hours' sleep before the alarm went again. Unlike when you live with an unpredictable baby!

With both Dc's I felt like of been hit by a truck for about the first 3 weeks.

I felt like I'd been hit by a bus from behind.

I hurt from my neck down to my ankles and was minus 3 days sleep.

The natural high after though was the best feeling ever - my mind was so active I wanted to ring the world and tell them of this wonderful, life changing experience I'd just had :)

A lot like Anchor woman, and very depressed once dh went baco to work, used to cry as he left the house each day. IN retrospect I was probably quite depressed.

I remember sittting in the bed in hospital after an 18 hour labour, on the back of 3 hours sleep the night before that, with dd howling and howling, just feeling utterly shellshocked by the birth and wanting to go home so DH could take over whilst i recovered a bit.

Bizzarely second time round, after a much more complicated birth resulting inEMCS I felt on a complete and utter high! It makes a real difference knowing what to expect!

1st time awful, after long labour and Cs. 2nd time fantastic after fast labour. I'd been ill with a chest infection at the end of that pg and after the birth I could breathe again. 3rd time, a bit meh, tired and weak. I was surprised as it was a v straightforward labour and birth.

I had a long labour, drip, failed epidural and emcs. I was so physically drained and shocked by it all. Saying 'i feel like i've been hit by a bus' is to much of a flippant saying for anyone to take it seriously but it was true. I felt like i had been involved in a car accident. From that very second dd didnt sleep, fed like a dream but constantly she just never slept so after a three day labour, nor did i. I had so much crap in hospital i discharged myself 17 hours after my c section as i really thought i'd feel better at home.

I didnt. Everyone saw me at home assumed it meant i was well and piled in. Im due in 6 weeks with dc2 and have asked for an elcs. Part of my reason is that i cannot face the sheer terror and what felt like torture again. When the consultant asked about dd's birth i sobbed. But i cried more for the shell i felt i was afterwards. I really came away feeling traumatised but that i was expected to be europhoric as i had my baby.

I felt really wobbly like my legs wouldn't work (only had g&a) and a bit surreal, like none of it had actually happened. Then I couldn't sleep and wasn't hungry until 3 days later when they let me go home!

Traumatised. Violated. couldn't walk, couldn't sit. White as sheet, exhausted both mentally and physically.

Hyperactive and unable to sleep.

Happier than ever before.

Like I had been run over by a truck. Like I needed a two week holiday in Barbados with a daily quota of 12 hours sleep to recover - but wasn't gonna get it!!

I felt terrible after DD1. Forceps delivery with fourth-degree tears, double incontinence for weeks, severe post-partum haemorrhage, then trauma being unable to get medical help for my condition because I was "out of postcode" for postnatal care and the GP said I should go back to hospital but the hospital washed their hands of me and the local midwives didn't have me on their postnatal books - then readmitted as a dehydrated emergency to hospital, whereupon a midwife reported me to social services because I said I could do with some support (!) and DD1 was also dehydrated and struggling to breastfeed as most of my milk had gone due to me being so unwell - interviewed (in my nightie, bleeding) by two very scary social workers before the hospital would declare me a fit enough mother to take my baby home - massive depression as I felt so shocked by the experience... horrific really.

On (terrified) alert for months as social services threatened promised they would do a "spot check" on me at home to check the home environment. When I eventually plucked up courage to phone them to ask why they hadn't been after a number of weeks, they were really blasé and said "oh sorry - we realised it was all a misunderstanding so didn't think we needed to follow up urgently... we'll come round next week so we can close the case."

(The head of the NCT had me interviewed by the Evening Standard re poor maternity/postnatal care but in the end the story didn't run because of the London bombings...) After six months of physiotherapy (with some very odd electrical machines!) and consultant care for my damaged pelvic floor, I got my continence back. Thank God.

After DD2 - planned caesarean (due to the above). I could walk! After a day! I still got severe PND but OMG the joy of the recovery in comparison! A few days of painkillers and then I gradually got better!

(Had to have counselling pre-DD2 as I was a bit scared!)

I had an emcs after being induced. I had preclampsia and labour was not going anywhere. I was 5cm for 24hrs and in agony at the end as I had epidural plus huge amounts of pitcoin in a last ditch attempt to get DD to come out through the shoot.

After I was exhaused from labour, scared by the shaking from having huge amounts of pain killers and itchy all over. They offered to give me something for the itching but I declined as I felt I had been pumped with enough drugs already. I was so tired that while I woke up itching I quicky fell back asleep.

Will push for planned CS next time if I have the same signs of preclampsia/ general feeling that DD was stuck (she was wedged against my pelvis as was never going to make it out).

I felt like shyte and shyte and shyte

Physically both times I felt like I'd run a marathon and then been kicked in the fanjo by someone wearing ice skates. Emotionally with DD1 it was like being in love for the first time, times a billion. With DD2 I was pissed off at the MWs for a multitude of reasons and was having trouble bonding.

Totally mentally screwed up - the physical part I found easy.