premature birth / term birth

[WannaBurger2016]

Inspired by another thread, is anybody up for sharing their experiences of very premature birth (say

Hopeful bump...

I've only had one labour and it was a premature birth also. Dd was born at 31 weeks, 2lbs 15oz. Sorry I can't be of more help with comparisons but hopefully someone else will be along.
Ps, yes it was painful, very painful!

My first dc was a 9lb 6oz whopper but his little sister was a teeny tiny 2lb 27 weeker so I do have the experience but the other way round iyswim. Also both mine ended up in c-sections, however both labours were fairly natural with minimal pain relief. With my ds, I was in labour for 20 hours before the section, three of which were pushing. When he was born we realised he was huge and also his head had been stuck sideways in my pelvis in something called deep transverse arrest so frankly he wasnt going to shift. I had the advantage of labouring in a birth pool which really, really bliddy helped with the pain, and went through six bottles of gas and air, plus the Juju Sundin birth skills book really helped me deal with the pain - i didn't need gas and air til 7cms or so I think. Anyway, it all went tits up anyway, no one realised he was stuck beccause i was 'coping beautifully' and I had a 1300ml pph so ended up in high dependency, probably because I spent so long trying to push out a jammed baby. Painwise his birth was much worse, because he was malpositioned so the contractions were pretty much every two minutes from the get go, and the feeling of your pelvis bones being ground and squeezed apart by a stuck baby's skull was awful.
With DD in hindsight I realised I lost my plug the night before, and spent that night with what I thought were my first ever Braxton Hicks (never had them with DS). Actually they were what labour pains feel like in a second pregnancy. I called the hospital that morning and when paracetamol and resting hadn't stopped them, gathered up ds and his birthday balloons and assorted toys (no hospital bag, nighty or spare pants for me though), we were about to be discharged with a suspected uti when they did a speculum exam and could see my waters bulging and the top of her head complete with dark hair! The little bugger somehow then managed to extricate herself and run up my tummy to turn breech so she was a section too. Painwise though, it wasn't her size, it was the fact my body had done it all before that made the difference. It was so quick and easy. Too damn quick. There are a lot of differences between term and prem. You get to move around and be upright with a term baby in a way you can't when wired up with a prem. But then you get so much support and handholding with a prem where you are much more likely to be left to it with a term baby. I felt much more nurtured when labouring with her, even though my hubby was largely out in the corridor with our son. But then with a term baby there's no fear and surge of adrenaline and you are allowed to cheer on contractions instead of wishing and hoping they would stop and go away and leave your baby be. I wish you both such good luck, and seriously second babies are so much less painful than fist ones. x x

My ginormous >10 pounder fell out of me, I think gravity really helped

No, I don't know why I'm on a tiny baby thread either