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Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

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Original poster

memorable childbirth

49 replies

mummytojames · 15/03/2004 23:52

what i mean by this is everyone remembers one thing dont matter how old there child gets about the labour you dot have to reply
but my question is whats he one thing that happened to you during or just before going into labour

mines easy telling the student midwife she didnt know what she was doing and the baby is coming now whether she liked it or not

what was yours? :0

i know im being nosey

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

emmatmg · 17/03/2004 14:42

DS1-being so shocked at how painful it was that and how it took every ounce of will power I've ever had to stop my legs giving way underneath me.

DS2-paramedics saying 'Ok thats the head out....don't push again until we tell you to' and me thinking 'F*CKING HELL this isn't meant to be happening here.'I was on my bedroom floor and 'I'm not pushing, this baby is coming out whether you like it or not!!!!!'

DS3-being REALLY REALLY REALLY proud of myself that I'd done it at home again although it was a planned homebirth this time.

prettycandles · 17/03/2004 15:34

I love the photo that I took, between contractions, of dh asleep on my hospital bed...fond memories of pre-parenthood innocence.

Getting through contractions by marching on the spot and chanting The Grand Old Duke of York; 36 wide-awake hours later being too exhausted to stay on my feet, so using gas an air on the bed, interspersed with reciting poetry to stop me hyperventilating.

Thinking I was being so incredibly witty (the effect of the gas and air).

Northerner · 17/03/2004 15:41

LOL at Grand Old Duke of York PC! I have a friend who sang the music from the club advert all through her labour.

'If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club ..'

prettycandles · 17/03/2004 16:07

LOL!

popsycal · 17/03/2004 19:17

standing up, resting my head on the bed, sucking on gas and air and swaying and wiggling to the tunes of barry white.....(dont ask)

saying to the midwife ' i know you - I teach your daughter' .........

Cam · 18/03/2004 09:22

dd1: being shaved and given an enema (for a normal delivery - 1970's)
dd2: not being shaved, or given an enema (1990's)

Libra · 18/03/2004 12:39

Ringing my mother up to announce ds1's birth, talking for ages about how big he was, the colour of his hair and eyes, what we were going to call him, listening to her excited congratulations ... and then she asked 'Who is this?'
To be fair, my sister and I were both due with our first babies in the same week, but she will never live that down.

motherinferior · 18/03/2004 12:57

DD1: pacing our flat 'like animal woman' (thanks DP) in semidarkness till I realised I couldn't concentrate on Buffy any more and it was time to go to hospital

Doctor asking me (about 14 hours later) why I was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan of a Manchester housing association

Wondering whether to correct the misspelling on my emergency consent form and deciding not a good idea to annoy the bloke about to perform my episiotomy

Being told 'the head's very hairy' by a doctor elbow-deep up my fanny (FFS what do you THINK)

Lying there splaylegged with half of King's hospital clustered around and DP clutching the baby in horrified 'shouldn't someone expert be doing this'...

DD2
'Oh my god, my waters have broken' while on phone to a friend

Seven hours later, sitting up to my tits in hot water in my book-lined front room, out of my trolley on gas and air, saying 'oh my god, I just had a baby, this wasn't supposed to happen for another three weeks'

chicaguapa · 18/03/2004 12:59

My most memorable moment was having DD put on my bare chest immediately after birth and her instinctively finding my nipple to feed. It was an amazing experience.

Thomcat · 18/03/2004 13:02

libra

that made me laugh so much I nearly choked on my lunch!!!!!!!!!

JanZ · 18/03/2004 13:11

I still remember watching dh walk across the blood splattered floor (I'd just had an episiotomy and forceps) and put on his NEW (ie still pristine and white) trainers. The doctors and midwives also looked on in amazement! He then stood and watched as they stitched me up. His comment "it was like a butcher's shop down there".

.... this from the man who had not wanted to be in there with me because he was squeamish - and who had got squeamish when they said it was going to be forceps, so they had got him a seat and told him to sit beside me at the "head" end, hold my hand and look at my face.....!

While I was in labour, I remember getting very agitated every time the tape of relaxation music I was listening to finished and dh had to rush over and out on the CD version (a shorter version of the same relaxation music) while it was winding back. I was in labour for 16 hours, so he had to do it lots of times!

I also remember being so tired I was going to sleep DURING the contractions! Hence agreeing to the forceps - ds just WASN'T descending! (Mid-cavity forceps - but I've been told that next time I shouldn't have a problem! ) With hind sight, I had been pushing during transition - but never having been through it beofre, I didn't know!

lou33 · 18/03/2004 13:11

Libra, my mum did that and I was the only one pg at the time! She even saw me bundled into an ambulance!

sweetkitty · 18/03/2004 13:48

wow these stories are great was going to say you all should write a book but you've done that already!!

I just know I will be on here in 4 months time with my own story because we can do nothing straightforward.

DP has been asking me about the placenta and P&B are doing a 20 facts about placentas and I got him to read it. He was getting all gushy until he got to the end and it said you can eat it best fried with onions, I thought he was going to fall over, I think he has told everyone he meets about it now though!

bobthebaby · 19/03/2004 00:09

Saying "this will pass" over and over again as I went through transition stage. My midwife was very impressed as this is normally the time she would be most busy and she could just sit there and watch me and dh doing our thing. We got our money's worth at the pushing stage though!

Ghosty · 19/03/2004 00:59

DS: - Being told after being in labour for 36 hours that I was only 4 cm dilated

Spending hours in the bath totally pissed on gas and air ... talking absolute drivel ... DH trying it too and the two of us behaving like we were on dope ...
The doctor holding DS over the screen after my c/s and me thinking 'Oh, a baby!' ... I mean, what else was it going to be, FFS???? DD: - Total terror about being cut open and feeling it ... asking the anaesthetist to tell me when they started cutting because only then could I be sure that the epidural worked and the anaesthetist telling me that they had already started!
Saying to the doctor "What, can't you find it?" when it seemed she was actually rummaging in my tummy looking for the baby
Feeling great that this time I was involved in the birth as there was no screen up.
The total feeling of euphoria watching DD being lifted out of my tummy and the nurse telling me that the baby was a girl ...

eidsvold · 19/03/2004 19:00

lou - what about your other two stories?

morocco · 21/03/2004 15:38

with ds1, seeing dh just as I was being wheeled into theatre for emergency c section - he'd raced over all the way from work poor love, and seeing ds for the first time all white and crying - I cried and cried.

with ds2, even at the height of contractions, having a quiet giggle to myself as just as I started to push, the suppository I'd had to have on arrival at the hospital (despite protest to nasty midwife) took spectacular effect all over her - poetic justice
and like you ghosty, the baby being delivered onto my stomach and me thinking, 'oh, it's a baby' not sure what I was expecting!

Angeliz · 21/03/2004 16:32

On way to hospital with dp and my mam and dad i remember that hysterical feeling a few have mentioned!
DP took the wrong turn and dad was directing him and my sister called while i was having a contraction and i just remember thinking it was like a scene from "Only fools and horses" and finding it amusing!!

Somebody mentioned the veins in your face!! I got SUCH a shock seeing me afterwards!

I also remember that they whisked the baby off to the table to clear her airways and about 30 seconds later, we all said."what is it?"
(After forceps and meconium and lots of people panicking me, we just wanted IT out safe so had forgot to ask!!)

I could go on forever about the birth but must go and cook!!!!

Great stories, Freddiecat did have a giggle to yours

Original poster

mummytojames · 30/03/2004 21:04

i also remember phoning my mum while i though i was having bracton hicks asking her the best way to cook a chicken and dp moaning the next day joking about after the panic of ds birth 'i neer did et that chicken dinner id i ' so i told him to go home and f cook it

OP posts:

hatter · 05/04/2004 12:06

What a great thread! so many memories how to pick the best ones...

dd1: thinking how speed bumps and contractions don't mix...while in the car to hospital / getting delirious on gas and air - convincing myself I was cantering along a beautiful beach on a huge white horse/ being told by the midwife a few hours after she was born to put her in bed with me and let her suck my knuckle...She slept and I cried

dd2 : dh yanking my legs apart whilst I was trying to cross them when it dawned on me that she was coming there and then and was going to do her utmost to get there before the midwife (born at home, delivered by dh) / sitting starkers on the bed staring at my bedroom full of ambulance men (they got there before the mid-wife) and thinking how bizarre it was when one of them gave me a blanket / noticing that beethoven was still doing his stuff on the cd player / getting into my own bath while breastfeeding my new baby, with my mum, stunned and over-awed, sitting next to us. wonderful. wonderful. wonderful.

lazyeye · 05/04/2004 12:11

DS1 - The SIZE of the bleedin needle for the epsiotomoy - it was like a comedy one!!

DS2 - Oh dear.Lost it in transition phase I think. Pooed meslef and screamed at traniee doctor to get m/wife. Very embarrassed later

dinosaur · 05/04/2004 12:17

DS1 I tend to draw a veil over, but with DS2 the highlights were:

DH saying helpfully "Breathe! Remember your breathing!" and me snarling "I am fing breathing! Now f off!"

And, somewhat in contrast to that, reciting the Lord's Prayer when I was at the pushing stage.

californiagirl · 05/04/2004 17:49

I have an MP3 player with a whole bunch of music on it and a randomize function, and I kept meaning to set aside some that would be appropriate for labor and never did, so we just left it on randomize. Fortunately it was the nurse we liked that came in when it decided to go from something perfectly rational to the Fugs singing "My baby done left me and I feel like homemade s*". Unfortunately I was between contractions and actually noticed.

Then there was the useless nurse who asked if the anti-nausea medication was working, and when I said it wasn't, I was throwing up every 30 minutes like clockwork, she thought about it and said I could have another dose when the first one wore off if I wanted. (Not her first dumbo move; when I started throwing up, she gave me the useless anti-nausea medication, but not a basin, a wet washcloth, or some mouthwash, all of which DH eventually found by himself.) One of my favorite things about my doctor was that he disliked that nurse so much we could tell.

jasper · 05/04/2004 23:13

dh singing songs from the shows (badly)

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