Things no-one tells you when you're pregnant!

[Emsie00]

Hi All,

When I was expecting I read all the usual books but still found myself thinking afterwards - why did no-one tell me that? I was talking to some friends who could all name a couple of things that they wish they had been told about, some were funny and some were really useful.

Here's a few of them;

1. If you want to breastfeed but cant for some reason the hospital gives you 3 options to choose from which are all free of charge whilst you are in. A) SMA formula B) Cow & Gate Formula C)Donated Breast Milk from another mother. You get to choose which you would like. I had naturally assumed that I would be able to feed my daughter so was completely unprepared to have to make this decision, especially after 19 hours of labour! So do your research beforehand and take your own if you dont like their options.

1. If you have to have an episiotomy don't be surprised if dr/midwife uses a pair of scissors. It took my husband weeks to get over what he had seen!!

1. I thought the suggestion of packing an Eye Mask in my labour bag was ridiculous, so never bought one. My daughter had to have phototherapy for 48 hours and I would have done anything to have had one to block out the blue light at night! There are also always lights on in the ward so it really does help to get you a better nights sleep.

Please add to this thread - With any luck it might help first time mum's to be

It's impossible to drink out of a cup when pushing, fortunately DH had packed himself a sportd bottle!!! Little pushesd aren't easy and most midwifes seem to encourage you to use formula if having BF problems rather than helping sort out problem. Fortunately my bosses daughter (aged 5) informed me that she'd been told having a bqaby was like poohing a pineapple - she was right!!

No-one told me that after a c/s you can ask to hold your baby straight away. I had my arms wrapped up and couldn't hold her for an hour - it'll be on my birth plan for next time.

Also, I was asked to take my own dressing off in the shower! I have never been so terrified, thought my guts would come spilling out onto the bathroom floor! (but they didn't)

Because you have to lay flat for 12 hrs or so after the c/s the lochia pools inside your and floods out onto the floor the first time you stand up. Very alarming.

After DD was born, DH turned to me in hospital and said "You know that you were concerned before she was born that I wouldn't fancy you after? Well, you needn't, because I do lots. But now I can see what you mean!"
We were prepared for a small poo when I was pushing that would be discretely whisked away by the MW, but actually pushing was so intense and prolonged that we had:
amniotic fluid
blood
urine
faeces
snot, and finally
vomit
flowing out of every orifice! It really was very primeval.
The MW had to put a pad between me and DH when he was supporting me in a squat so that I wouldn't cover him too. I can remember thinking during contractions that we'd brought him a spare T-shirt, but I hadn't thought to bring spare trousers, so I probably shouldn't be pooing down his legs!

For me it was the afterpains, with no.2, I thought I was being really good and feeling great when the midwife offered me some paracetamol incase I needed it in the night. No, No I'm fine I said. I was at the time. Oh my god I thought I was in labour again whilst feeding dd at 3 in the morning.

I hear you say they get worse. I won't be turning the drugs down with this no.3 then.

I'd also like to say though that however bad it is, it is all soooooo worth it and we do keep doing it again.

Aaaah, just like going down memory lane looking at all this, and bizarrely making me all the more keen to do it again (masochist!) What can I add...

Take straws to sip water from a cup that your DP passes to you from time to time - much easier than trying to hold cup with shaky hands.

If your waters don't break before you go into labour and they get the old knitting needle out to move things along, the ensuing waterfall is pretty impressive.

You might not get the urge to push that people talk about, I didn't, so was pushing for a while in the wrong way iyswim. It wasn't until I started pushing like I was going to do a poo that the baby started coming out.

Weeing every 30 mins after giving birth - where did it all come from? didn't get the sweats though, so I suppose its either one or the other.

Pack sandwiches for after the birth. Never has cheese and pickle tasted so good.

Organise some thank you cards, stamps etc. before you give birth to acknowledge the mountain of lovely things you'll be sent.

Yup, relationship with your mother definitely goes awry - on the plus side, relationship with MIL has improved for the better - anyone else find that?

Oh yeah, and Kamillosan - lashings of it, on boobs, bum, fanjo and anywhere else that needs some TLC. Plus I love the smell of it.

God yes.. Kamillosan. DS is now 15 years old, but I reckon I could still experience 'let-down' at the slightest whiff of Kamillosan!

You will also find you seem to be going to bed at the time you used to go out and getting up at the time you used to get home!

we all know we dialate to 10cms but no one tells you your babys head circumference could be 36.5 like ds2's was...

neither do they mention the sore throat you may get from huffing/puffing/swearing/groaning

or how your fanjo feels like its done 10 rounds with mike tyson (read into that what u will u dirty lot!)

or, how much you will feel you have betrayed dc1 when u take dc2 home.
it does pass though.

Am intrigued to see others' comments on relationships with mothers going downhill and MIL improving after giving birth. That has definitely happened for me. With my mother, am now seeing my relationship with her in a whole new light and seeing all the bad things that i don't want to replicate with my little one (my mum is quite cold and non-tactile, so i constantly hug and kiss my little one!). Am now better friends with MIL, although haven't figured out why that is exactly, probably some deep, psycho-analytic reason somewhere. or maybe just cos she's closer and lends a hand!

Everyone tells you how you should sleep when newborn baby sleeps, what they don't tell you is how much time you spend awake just watching sleeping baby, checking s/he's breathing, and also just quite amazed by him/her, when you SHOULD be sleeping.

phantomrantum - oh yes, that's a good one. My mother used to say to me "Put that baby down" - when I was holding him asleep. I replied, "No, it's my baby and I'll hold it." This time I'm going to try and put it down and get some sleep!

Sheer complete humiliation in the labour room... Gave up on the idea of preserving any dignity! And as for the idea of retaining any mystery for your dh, forget it!!! I banned him from going anywhere near the business end at any point and still felt like he had seen more of my bodily functions than I would ever have liked him to!

I was 4 weeks early with my baby and didn't believe I was in labour for hours because it felt like I needed to do a really big poo!

i really wish someone had told me that some babies are just plain lazy eaters and they can still be hungry after ages on the breast so when you put them to bed and they cry endlessly it might be because they are still hungry rather you are just a bad mother.....

this was solved by the purchase of a dual breast pump and bottle feeding my twins, it didnt get rid of the wind or the two hour feeding but it did cut down on the crying - mine and theirs.

Passing blood clots after the birth, I went to the loo and thought my liver or one of my kidneys had fallen out.

Also fanjo does feel enormous and swollen like one of those swollen red bummed baboon things.

I felt like I had no dignity left to loose but did feel it was a bit much to take when MW days after the birth kept coming around and asking to look at my stitches. Taking your knickers off and bending over for a strange woman in your front room definetly took it to another level. Especially when trying not to bleed everywhere so cluthching brick like pad to your bits!

The uncontrollable shaking when my milk came in, like a really bad bout of the flu, frighened me to death first time round! Got used to it for DD2 and expected it for DS1, but was very strange experience.

Hi Tinkerboo - I know exactly what you mean about the blood clots. Even though it was just over 3 years ago now I remember it like it was yesterday. A piece of the placenta was left behind when I had my little girl and I was told I could pass it at anytime and not to be too concerned. About a week after I came home from hospital I passed it. I'm sorry to sound so graphic but I thought my insides were falling out and that I would never stop bleeding, it was absolutely awful. I must have looked an absolutely sight sitting in my living room on a towel and not being able to move and wondering what the hell was happening and ringing my husband and my mum in a blind panic. I remember it like it was yesterday. Mum of Abby

you can find out about childbirth and how much agony it can be, but not many people seem to talk about the aftermath - the weeks of feeling like you've been run over by a lorry, when your insides are fallen out and trying to get back in, the bruising, the piles..... It's that that puts me off having another baby - the pain of birth comes and goes!

for labour:
your waters can gush out and ruin your mattress/floor
you may be prepared to stay at home as long as possible rolling around on your gym ball but if they discover your BP is raised you have to stay in and be hooked up to monitors and end up with any pain relief going and your feet up in stirrups.
forceps with no episotomy or extra pain relief is excrutiating
yes it hurts but that's nothing to afterwards!

after giving birth
not being too fussed about holding new baby, just wanted to sleep
a few hours later, i was obsessed with looking at baby as if i couldn't work out where it came from
get out of hospital asap as you'll never be able to sleep there, if it's not your baby crying, the others will be
bleeding for 4 weeks (i'm sure i read 10 days)
pain on going to the toilet, and yes the first poo is awful and the midwives are so obsessed with it
milk coming in is sooo painful, if baby can't latch on properly then with every cry you hear you are in so much pain you can't even hold your own newborn.
if you have a big baby then when you go to the supermarket to buy formula even on the day you come out of hospital, there are much smaller babies out there and it makes you think yours has been around for ages and isn't new anymore (?!)
oh and even though every one says breast feeding doesn't come naturally - try and believe this as I didn't and was actaully suprised how MW's were happy to give out formula in hospital at the drop of a hat and weren't very good at helping me BF, they just liked shoving my boob in babies face which wasn't much use for when i got home

That it hurts down there afterwards, a lot...

You always hear about feeling so great and 'blooming' when pregnant, no one told me i would actually feel like shite at the beginning and be so damn uncomfortable by the end i would be willing to try anything to get the bugger born!

Not read all this, but a couple of things that surprised me:
Having to be held up in the birthpool to stop me from drowning, when I was falling asleep during transition! (had to get out eventually anyway, baby was going nowhere)
Going to the shops with DH with DS1 when he was a week or so old - and feeling completely overwhelmed by the traffic, noise, people etc - instantly turned into a quaking wreck, and had to be taken straight home again.
Those afterpains - just when you thought it was over...
Nasty forceps marks on DS2 after assisted delivery - poor little mite.
How quickly the room is flooded with people in white coats, once things start going wrong.

LOL lots, thank you all

I am sure people told me it would feel like pooing a bowling ball, but I must not have listened because it's so counter-intuitive - "what do you mean, push like I'm pooing?" - that was a surprise

V proud of myself for popping DD out with minimal pain relief, thought I'd done the worst bit, but screamed like Robbie Savage when I was stitched up (oh, and kicked sadist doctor in the head ... accident ... honest ).

Make sure you are fairly comfortable in front of your first few visitors cos it's quite embarrassing to wet yourself in front of people, thank goodness for cheap wipe-clean leather sofas .

OMG the piles ... Expected but still horrendous, walked like a rodeo rider for weeks ...

definitely the night sweats and fluey aches when milk coming in-was sooo glad my neighbour mentioned it as otherwise would have convinced i was really ill/infection. felt like i was going through menapause!
also my worst afterpain was in my upper arms where i had been gripping thr headboard-couldn't lift arms up much and so couldn't get ds out of cot in hospital! will def go in for some practise weight training efore any more (as if...)