Embarrassed About Labour

[Disneybump]

So I had a really embarrassing labour and it's keeping me awake 2 nights later thinking about it...

I thought it might help put other people's minds at rest that, whatever you're worried about, it the can't be worse than this. Here goes:

I went into hospital two days early with strong, regular contractions thinking "this is it" only to find I was one centimetre dilated. The contractions had been so strong (but going nowhere) that they kept me in for 2 nights on a ward. I had some lovely painkillers, including codeine, which helped me get some sleep. I was also offered a c section the next day because she was breech, which I said no to because our hospital offers natural breech birth and I really wanted this. So I decided to go home and wait for my waters to break. The next day I lost my plug (still with the contractions) and 2am that night my waters went. Everything was progressing nicely and I was having a bath getting ready to leave for the hospital. The only thing was I really, really needed a poo and had done all that day but the codeine had made me really constipated. Which hurt so bad. My bowels never give me any problems and I don't usually take painkillers so my body didn't know what to do with itself.

By the time we got to the hospital my contractions were killing me and I was still desperate for a poo. The midwife, when finding I was 5 1/2 centimetres dilated, told me it was the pressure of the baby. I explained about the constipation and begged for some laxitives. Having already had contractions I knew I would cope with them so much better if I could just go to the toilet. They had me on gas and air for the pain straight away and agreed to get me a suppository laxative. Which worked really well...

But I was so off my head on gas and air I wasn't allowed to the bathroom so I had to sit on a bedpan in a chair with the midwife and my husband in the room. Because of the laxitives it was really bad but I was just so desperate to go. My poor lovely husband was looking away like I asked but he could hear everything. The midwife had to clean me up and I felt so embarrassed but I did feel loads better, when all of a sudden I projectile vomited all over myself and the bed.

I was having such a horrible time I kept up with the gas and air just trying to get through... then we found out her head was stuck and I had to go straight for an emergency C section. I was so out of it and emotional I cried all through the procedure and just wanted it to all be over.

I know some people poop in labour from pushing but I just think mine was so much more embarrassing because of the way it happened and I feel really ashamed when I think of it! I didn't even get to push...

Our baby girl is perfect and healthy, I know I couldn't ask for more. Please share any stories, there's no judgement here and hopefully this will make any other embarrassed mama's realise it doesn't always happen like the movies! An upsetting birth still results in a beautiful baby so we shouldn't be embarrassed (even if we can't help it sometimes)!

On a totally unrelated note - please speak to your health visitor, 2 say old babies mustn't be left to sleep through the night, at that age you need to wake them every 3 hours to feed.

Thank you @fenellamaxwellspony I will certainly mention it. I am currently still I hospital so the midwives know everything and are not concerned as they keep an eye on us constantly. They are happy to let us both sleep, she is feeding well throughout the day, gaining weight and always happy! What an angel... the light at the end of the tunnel.

@terrylene I'm so sorry to hear, I couldn't agree with you more about the staff- they are priceless. Where would we be without them? I honestly don't know how to show how grateful I am to them all! A card doesn't seem to cut it...

Agree with fenella above, op. You aren't the only one who had a traumatic birth your dd did too. Whilst she is understandably knackered from it, too much sleep will lower her blood sugar which will make her more sleepy and the cycle continues. Mention to the midwife(s) caring for you two today that she has been very sleepy and you'd like to get proper feeding ( bottle or breast) set up today. Also have them check her for jaundice as that makes them sleepy too and in breastfed babies is harder to get rid of.

Back to the trauma and the duration, sadly all of us it seems have similar experiences. I had a 36 hour pre labour ( fucking prelabour? Felt like much more than that, was sure they'd say I was four or five cm dilated, no but only 1-2). Tried gas and air at 3-4 puked all my breakfast up which was the fist food I'd been able to look at in over a day because of the bloody entonox.
Then after 24 hours of established labour, baby being back to back and becoming distressed herself ( I been fucking distressed for days) I was carted off for an emergency c/s. Farted the loudest fart post spinal block as they lifted me onto the op table and by God did it stink! Like a combo of bad eggs and the vomit I'd done earlier. One midwife actually gagged. My dh said " that's a cracker, even for you"
So yes, birth is shit, literally! But what a prize at the end. Xx congratulations

@Disneybump Sounds like you are doing an awesome job! Do have a chat with be midwives today about regular feeding, as PP said you want to avoid long periods without a feed this young for the low blood sugar/sleepiness/jaundice reasons. She's so tiny at the moment a couple of minutes every couple of hours will do the trick.

My bonding wasn't affected either luckily it my feeding was (due to a bad PPH that meant my milk didn't arrive for a week). A debrief might be helpful for you - the thing you said about loss of control really stands out to me (I felt the same) . A debrief will take you through exactly what happened, allow you to ask any questions and fully understand why things were done - and most importantly that none of the things you may feel went 'wrong' were not your fault. Too many women are just told to get on with it after a tough birth and to just be grateful that they have a healthy baby. Of course that's the most important thing, but your feelings are important too, and if you feel upset about your birth here there really is support out there to help you address and move on from those feelings.

Another thing to bear in mind - day 3-6 after birth are usually the days the 'baby blues' hit even if you are completely delighted and in love with your baby. It's a hormone crash and completely normal to start feeling totally over emotional. Doesn't happen to everyone but you may find it does. If it does, go with it, cry as much as you want and it should pass quickly enough. If it last more than a couple of days, seek help.

Thanks girlies... I have been feeling much better these past few days. The shock of it all was still really raw on the first couple of nights, but every day is easier and I feel brighter. I know I'm due a hormone crash, so... watch this space!

The midwives have been amazing about her feeding... she wouldn't latch at all the first and second day so I've been hand and pump expressing. They think because she gets such a big feed of breast milk in one go she sleeps for longer, rather than lots of little feeds, because I express alot in one go. When I say slept through the night I meant 4 hours solid at a time without stirring... I pretty much figured that's sleeping through the night for a new born?

She typically has a last feed before midnight, I won't hear her again till gone 4 then we Wake up together coming on for 8. That's what the past few nights have been anyway. This is my first baby so I'm not sure what's normal to be honest but we have been watched, monitored and helped constantly so I'm sure if there were any concerns we would be showed/told?

Anyway, we have just been discharged! Getting our things together now and DH is helping himself to my chocolates which is not what I meant by "put them away"..! I'm so looking forward to going home and getting on with our lives as a new family.

I have really found the support here overwhelming and the stories so, so relatable. It feels good to know that what I thought about birth was wrong, it is not like the movies and challenges you in ways I did not expect! Next time I would prefer to lay an egg.

I gave birth to both of mine on all fours with the hospital gown exposing my backside to all and sundry. I was out of it on gas and air and kept thinking I was going to poo and demanding DH had a look. Then I called the midwife the poo monster. I vomitted on DD after she was born- poor baby. She had to be rinsed and wiped.

@fucksakefay you are the best! You need to write a birth blog. I have just done my first non troubled poo, it was amazing. I'm the happiest I have ever been!

The debriefing sounds amazing, thank you and @sleepisthebest so much for recommending it. My midwife is setting me up an appointment 6 weeks from now (they think any less is too soon and will cause more trauma? My God, what did they do to me???)

I shat all over the place with ds1, I remember saying "there's something coming out" and to be kind they all (dh, my mum and the midwife) pretended it was just my waters or whatever but it stank so I knew it was poo! Then it never got cleaned up until after ds was born and my dad and my sister nearly stood in it.
I can guarantee, op, that nobody else cares or even thinks about the poo part of your labour.

There's definitely no dignity in giving birth.
My 3rd was undiagnosed breech, I got to hospital basically pushing her out. My examination went oh yes you're about 9cm oh I can feel bum cheeks. Straight into a wheelchair with the midwife running me to delivery suite whilst dragging a portable scanner and shouting we've got a breech and gathering hcps like the pied piper. It was literally standing room only in my delivery room because everyone in the universe wanted to see.
My mum managed to get into there too and she told me that at one point dds bum and legs were hanging out of me and we both had matching dangling poos

I didn't poo during labour but I did give birth at home in our upstairs corridor. Which has a cream carpet. At one point in labour, I must have sat down on the carpet, as afterwards there was a perfect, graphic rendering of my undercarriage printed on the carpet. I mean there was no way you couldn't tell what it was.

It gave the furniture delivery men something to talk about the next day when they brought the new baby furniture actually it took us about a month to get our arses organised to have the carpet cleaned, during which time numerous guests trooped upstairs and said things like, "so where did you give birth? Oh that's a funny mark.... er oh"

So basically the neighbours and ILs have seen a bloody potato print of my fanny. Classy.

Op, I pood copious amounts and at frequent intervals. DH had to wipe my bum each time afterwards! His face was a picture but he knew better than to say a word. It's so normal OP.

Nearly wet myself laughing at the synchronised dangling poos and fanny stain posts!

I didn't poo with DD1 but did with DD2. I'd spent at least 30 minutes on the loo trying to squeeze it all out but no, when I pushed DD2 out, loads of poo came out too, along with me hollering my apologies!

Yeah I don't think I or dh had quite anticipated how gross a job it would be for him to clean out the home birthing pool (I was in hospital) after I lost rather a lot of blood in it, and everywhere else. And dropping off a heavily blood stained futon at the tip might not have been fun for him either.

Fanny print? The turd from hell? This has all cheered me up... nearly as much as the memory of me cradling DD2 in bed while DH scrubbed away at the bloody puddle on the bedroom carpet with 1001 cleaner. He'd put towels down... and I'd missed them

I gave birth in the Middle East and was given the most enormous neck-to-ankle nightie to wear. It was all very medicalised and I wasn't allowed to get up at all once they attached the heartbeat monitor, so when I needed a pee they brought me a bedpan. Not easy to pee on a bedpan when you're wearing what is essentially a polyester maxi dress. They wouldn't let my husband see me doing it and made him stand behind the curtain But he was allowed to watch my episiotomy!

Then when I was pushing (which is the pits, btw) I had two obstetricians in between my legs and several nurses all fussing round me and stroking my legs, as well as DH peering down.

My enormous Lebanese doctor kept yelling 'YOU ARE PASSING HARD STOOL! YOU ARE PASSING HARD STOOL!' And to this day I have no idea whether I was actually 'passing hard stool', or if this was just some sort of visualisation exercise to help me to push?!

There was definitely some squirty action at one point

Horrendous experience overall but if the cleaner had wandered in to have a swatch I could not have cared less

Lol!

I retained the placenta in my births my second labour they decided it was my bladder being in the way. So, I hobbled to the loo, hands on the midwife in front of me, while she walked backwards, crouching down while holding on to the clamps on the cord between my legs. Manovered me on to the toilet, and I couldn't wee. So we had to do it all back to the bed without actually being any further forward in getting the placenta out. Also my waters broke just as my midwife was checking me, while I was on my hands and knees so she was bent down between my legs. According to DH she had changed twice by the time she was done with me. I'm also pretty sure I pooed but really wasn't paying enough attention. Oh and I mooed through the pushing stage. Labour is embarrassing.

Mine was much the same OP

I was leant over the bottom of the bed during a strong contraction and took in some gas and air. It caused me to vomit so hard that I quite literally covered the bed from top to bottom with it. But I could feel more coming so I crawled on my hands and knees towards the bathroom to do it in the "proper place", meanwhile my weak-of-stomach DH was heaving into a cardboard bowl because of the smell and the poor midwife who was herself HEAVILY PREGNANT attempted to clean it up. Labour was a bit of a blur but I have a very clear image of myself coming up for air out of the toilet bowl and yelling, "I AM SO SO SORRY!" at the midwife.

I assume most people poo in labour, even if noone ever mentions it again. Even the people who think they didnt, probably did.

Really dont overthink it.

Could your DH not have left the room and waited outside until you were finished, rather than just looking away?

I can relate to feeling embarrassed about labour and birth! I think often it's secondary embarrassment. We don't care at the time but look back and cringe.
I pooped with both of mine. The first was during a forceps delivery in theatre. I had a sheet draped over my legs and asked DH to stay up by me where you literally could not see a thing. But one of the staff members took it upon themselves to drag him down to the business end whilst I was preoccupied pushing to watch everything, so he ended up witnessing all the gore and horrors in full view. To be honest, when my DH told me afterwards, I felt absolutely humiliated. I still cringe at the thought of crapping in front of about 10 people.
The second was during DS2s straightforward birth and to be honest I didn't mind as much because I was just in a room with one midwife and not a huge team of people.
It's totally normal though!

@sunshinestorm I know what you mean but by that point I was really out of it and her heartbeat was dropping so I couldn't leave the room and we were both confused and worried. It was only a few minutes after that I was rushed to the operating theatre and pumped full of drugs... DH had to stay in the room alone until someone went to get him. I don't remember anything after that until DH was stood over me crying and DD was handed to me.

The whole thing was a blur it was only a day after birth it all sank in and I started to feel really embarrassed and upset. I think with how scared I was at the time, even if I had been with it, I wouldn't have asked him to leave because I needed him so much. The whole thing was just really frightening which I am starting to realise is the real problem here. I've asked for a debrief, I think that will help as I really have no memory of what happened in the theatre.