What was giving birth to you like for you mother?

[Papillon]

Mum had a quick hospital birth with me, I arrived at 5am. Dad was not allowed to attend and so was milking the cows, he saw the sunrise and hence my middle name became Dawn

I was baby number 6 (first to survive and that includes a rubella termination). I was delivered in 30 minutes start to finish, as were both my sisters. Sisters born in local unit ten mminutes walk from Mum, but it took an ambulance rush job to get me there on time as I had to be born in a high dependency unit due to history.

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Emergency section - cord was wrapped around my neck. My poor dad was left to pace up and down outside and then told "it's either your wife or your baby". My dad was horrified. Thankfully we both survived. My mum has a hideous vertical scar and didn't have any more children.

I am my mother's second child and the labour was quicker than with my older brother (her firstborn). Consequently I was nearly born in the pre-war ambulance taking her (slowly) from the RAF camp my father was stationed at into York.

Luckily she hung on until they got to hospital as I was born with the cord around my neck whcih had to be cut PDQ and they had to give it some to get me properly breathing.

Whenever I misbehaved as a child and adolescent my mother used to say "She can't help it, she was starved of oxygen at birth"

emergency c sec at 36wks with me then both sisters by elective c sec

Horrible by all accounts - 1970s-style with induction by drip, enema, shave etc, flat on back not allowed to move then fetal distress and rotational forceps with no pain relief. She is still quite traumatised by it (and doesn't have the best control of her bowels, poor woman) but had much easier births with my sisters. My Dad found it awful as well as he was bundled out, convinced his wife & child were about to die .

When my Granny went into labour with my mum (1945) she was put into a room and told by the midwife that under no circumstances was she to wake her up (it was late at night) and was left to labour alone till morning !

Both my sister and I were breech - sis was the more unusual footling breech and me just the normal bum first arrival . They were living in New York at the time and got very into the relatively new lamaze stuff, plus Da was there at both births - he thought it was amazing. Mum had pethidine, I know, but nothing else afaik, thankfully sis and I were both small babies as I imagine the breech deliveries were pretty painful.

Hideous. She was 20 (though says she was 16 in the head) She was really ignorant as to what was happening, eg when her water broke she was really shocked and thought her insides were falling out, and was very scared as a result. Dad wasn't allowed in, I was breech she had a forceps delivery with no pain relief. She got severe pnd was on Valium for years and as a result divorced my Dad and didn't have any more children.

The good news is she recovered and got back together with Dad (but never re-married)

Me, born in hospital shortly after my mum arrived!

My brother, born at home with one midwife and my my Dad in attendance. Another short labour but he was blue as the cord was wrapped around his neck. All well though. Very experienced midwife who did a lot of home deliveries (as was the norm then I believe)

Interestingly I also had shortish labours and no pain relief (although it hurt like f*)

Second child, born in hospital in the mid-60s. My mother, a nurse, was convinced that I was on the way but the mid-wife and doctor had lost the heart-beat, assumed that I was dead and were preparing to deliver a still-born baby. They all continued to ignore by mother and only began to pay attention when, as I crowned, my scalp was ripped off! I was three years old before I got any hair and a hideous contrast to my very beautiful older sister with her long blonde ringlets.

Great thread - it makes me think I must get my mother to tell or re-tell more stories of our births and early years. You sort of always assume that information will be there for you if you want it, but of course one day it won't.

NO idea really...my mum never really talked about my Birth with me...all she told me was that she was completely shocked when she first saw me ( I know nice, lol) as the M/w mentioend something about "your daughter just got a lil bit wrong with her lips" and it turned out to be a complete, wide, bilateral cleft lip and palate...and well, if you don't expect that, I suppose it can be quite shocking at first!
Love
Kerstin

I was she 2nd of four, all born at home. Mum said that she had a really nice midwife for me, a Jamaican woman. The midwife popped in at 12 noon on hot Saturday in August to see if my Mum was having any contractions yet. She wasn't, so the midwife said "good, I'll go and get some lunch then".
She got to the corner of the road and heard my Mum scream. By the time she got back to my parent's house, I was crowning apparently.
Mum says I've been unpredicable ever since

My mum was induced 4 weeks early with me because of rhesus incompatibility. All I know is that she had a "panting" delivery as she wasn't allowed to push and I arrived at around 4:30pm. I was whisked off for blood transfusions and kept in an incubator next to a 2lb baby called Mary and my brothers bought my mum daffodils in to the hospital on mother's day.

I was 3rd of 3 with my eldest brother being a hospital birth and my little big brother a home birth.

I was the youngest of 3. Eldest brother delivered with forceps 3 weeks early weighing 4lb. Some question about whether he was failing to thrive in utero - people didn't realise my mother was pregnant even when she was 8months.
Younger older brother born at home 1 week early.
I was born 2 weeks early in 1 hour, only just in hospital. My mother says whereas with the older 2 she just lay there wanting to die, with me she mowed the lawn, thought oh dear, went to hospital and ... finallly... got the hang of pushing! She said it hurt too much to push with my older brothers.

Awful! I was an extended breech & in those days they didn't have scans, so they couldn't see what position I was in, all they told mum was that they couldn't feel a head!
She was in labour for 24 hours & said it was agony & very risky. My Dad was asked to leave the room.
Apparantly when I was eventually born I was quite bruised & had one leg stuck up in the air for 24 hours! Fortunately it later went down!!
My mum tells me that my birth was just the start of my awqward behaviour!!!

My mum gets a far away look in her eyes whan she describes how she went into hopital at dinner time, slept all night (only waking up once or twice with slight pain). Midwife woke her up in the morning for 20 mins of mild contractions and out I popped. Tea and toast all round.

Then she snaps out of it and gets really ferocious when she describes how I was a colicky baby and gave her hell for 4 months.... and that set the tone for the next 39 years!!

I was induced at 12 days over as it was almost Christmas and my mum had promised my brothers she'd be home with the baby by Christmas, and she knew my dad wouldn't have a clue what to do with the turkey! He wasn't present at the birth, so a message was brought in and my birth was announced at the police conference he was presenting at!

Incidentally I was her 2nd VBAC, after an emergency vertical section at 32 wks due to placenta praevia (sp?), during which she lost so much blood she almost died - sadly the baby (a boy) only survived for 6 days and she never saw him as he was rushed to another hospital. She fell pregnant asap afterwards and delivered a 9lb boy naturally less than a year later .

I was her first baby after 3 m/c. She was already in hospital with high blood pressure and I was delivered by emergency c-section with a vertical cut. She had my brother and sister by the same method and was then sterilised.

I'm her first child. C-section under GA at around 36 weeks as she had pre-eclampsia. She was offered a VBAC with my brother but declared "no thank you, I don't do labour and I don't want to be awake either"! In her defence she had suffered a lot of pain and surgery in her life and didn't see the need for any additional pain if she could avoid it.

As an aside, her consultant had a fixation about over-population and tended to rant at women with more than 2 children. He carried out a huge number of hysterectomies for extremely spurious reasons.

...err, I'm assuming he's now dead. Or that he doesn't share She Who Shall Not Be Named's litigious nature

• I just read the title as

"what was giving birth to your mother like"

My mum didn't make it to hospital in time and had me at home with Dad and next door neighbour delivering. I had listeria so was carted off to SCBU for a fortnight. My dad visited every night after work but my mum had 3 other kids to look after so only made it to hospital at w/ends - the nurses thought she had PND cos she never went with Dad in the week and kept asking him how she was!!

I am a first child and my mum had to have an emergency caesarian after being in labour for 18 hours apparently my head was outwards instead of inwards towards my chest and there was a risk of me choking. She said I was always the "difficult one", right from birth.

My sister and I were born in Singapore in 1972 and 1975. On our due dates Mum was booked in for induction (routine over there at the time) she had us both within 2 hours . She said it was easy, "just count backwards at each contraction" she told me "throw your pain to the other side of the room" she told me. Yeah right!!

I can see how you did that QOQ

it was a hard one to write out! I always have trouble with titles!!

on a more serious note - now I've figured out what the thread is actulaly about.

Not sure exactly how it was for my mum. But I know that my brother was born 11 days early on a Wednesday - and my dad only just made it back up to Cleveland from Portsmouth (he'd just docked!) for the birth. The dr. tried to get my mum to book her induction date for me once she hit her due date but she was stubborn and made them book it two weeks later.......saying that I would be born on the 14th March. Dr. told her not to be daft and how could she be so certain. She never told him why (think he'd have thought she was loopy LOL).

Anyhow, sure enough I turned up on the 14 March, a Wednesday and 11 days late!