What's the most memorable thing said to you while you were giving birth?

[Elasticwoman]

A midwife said to me, as I was going into transition, "This is going well, do you mind if we video you?"

My answer was emphatic, if unprintable.

From MW, with her face very close to mine,and a voice not quite calm enough to disguise the urgency,
"cadelaide, baby's not very happy in there and we really need to get him out quickly. Can you really push for me?"

My God I pushed, I pushed like fuck...

....and he was fine!

dp to me "well she's the midwife if she says you're not in pain then you'll have to put up with it"

as i lay strapped to bed on a syntocin drip with no pain relief.

Labopur going badly wrong, with no dilation at all, contractions every 3 mins, and a dropping heartrate from ds. I asked dh to 'take me to Thailand' referring to him talking me through snorkelling on reefs to help me through the INTENSE PAIN!!! the midwife laughed and said ther's plenty of time for that later. I, high as a kite, was trying to explain it was a meditation thing...

To the midwifes credit - the area flooded with consultants etc when it was going horribly wrong. the midwife said - 'Can we keep it calm, ratfly likes her privacy', having read my notes that said privacy was important to me. I was so grateful to her.

When we finally got to the hospital after 24 hrs+ labouring at home with IM, I had an epidural. Which didn't work. During a discussion around whether if I needed a C section in the end and my epidural wasn't working, if my only option would be general anesthetic - hospital midwife goes:

"You know the drugs aren't working when the surgery starts and you feel the thin edge of the blade..."

Yikes! Ended up with an emergency C...as I'm going into the theatre the midwife goes: "Is your epidural working now?" I wouldn't let go of the gas and air - my husband was like: drop that tube! "I've got to top up - what about the blade!"

With dd, me at home on phone to mw in hospital, she says,
"...and what makes you think you need to come in so soon?"

Dd was born on the floor 30 mins later.

'So you're for the chop are you?' from the anaesthetist on the way to the theatre for an emergency c-section

Ds1, MW to me - if you don't take your knickers off, we're gonna be here all night.......

Do you want your baby to die?

B@st@rd registrar or some such after they totally mismanaged my labour and did not support me at all or know anything about childbirth!! I ended up with a CS but my notes prove to me just how rubbish they were with me, who was having her first and was totally naive and thought they'd know what they were doing

Am I a tad annoyed about my emCS? Slightly...

with DD, nearly twelve years later, I can only remember me saying the memorable stuff.

After coming out of the toilet while in labour I PROUDLY announce that I would leave it a while if I was anyone else!!!!

and while being stitched up after episiotemy I announce that I'll have an epidural next time so that I don't have to have a spinal whilst contracting and the b@st@rds have taken the G&A and TENS off me to insert the needle, pausing to ask if I'm allergic to penicillen, blah de blah... Just fecking get on with it! Not sure if I actually said it but I KNOW I thought it.

Actually next time I won't be having a fecking needle in my spine and I won't be setting foot in the hospital, they can't organise a p!ss up in a brewery!

After 24 hours of pretty hard going labour I was given an epidural and turned to the anaethetist and said " I love you!"

me:is it alive
anaethetist Yes

With DD1- qualified m/w to student m/w as student was going to lunch, "Don't worry, we won't do anything 'til you get back". And my m/w visiting after the birth, asked how it had gone. I said it was, "A bit of a slog". She said, "Yes, well first ones often are." She obviously hadn't read the birth notes saying that I'd been in labour for 3 days, been pushing for 3 1/2 hours before they decided that DD had got stuck and that I needed a ventouse delivery and stitches!

With DD2- DH to MIL and his sister, "Well I felt fine afterwards!"

With DD3- "Why don't you let the paracetamol work and try a tens machine?" said by a nurse. I tend to labour fast once I get going and the midwives were convinced that because I'd been 1-2cms dilated 40 minutes before, I wouldn't be delivering for hours. So they gave me some paracetamol, told DH that he'd have to go home and said they'd ring him when things, "kicked off". They also moved me to a ward where there were 2 sleeping women. It was when I started pushing (and trying not to scream/make a noise and wake those 2 other women!) that they suddenly realised that I was about to deliver. I'd gone from 1-2cms to fully dilated in an hour!

me to dh in theatre 'why are they all laughing at me - tell them to stop NOW' and I was convinced they couldnt hear me speaking privately to dh - even as they were operating on my stomach.

Anyone want to plan scrabble? I had had an epidural of course.

"Push"

FFS I was pushing. So I PUSHED. And out burst DD...

followed by an hour of stitching...

my lovely midwives said
"Oh you are grunting - that's a good sign, it means we're in business"
and later
"put your hand down - you can feel her head"
It was very encouraging to be able to feel dd coming out, it made the pushing much less scary as I could feel it working.

(home birth - took less than an hour - during Trinny and Susannah)

Normally very verbose and quite foul mouthed with it, it was a shock to me and those present that I spent most of my 16 hour labour in silence... though after a rather shocking ER style theatrical interlude, I distinctly remember turning the consultant and saying in a measured voice "I think I'll have some smack now please..."

Shouted at my husband who smelled too strongly for me to bear it:
'TOO MUCH COFFEE
TOO MANY CIGARETTES
GO AWAY NOW GO AWAY!"

My sister wrote it all down and emailed it to me the week after!

While lying in the delivery suite after giving birth to dd I lost alot of blood, Didn't realise at the time !!! (lots of drugs) but I could hear an almighty gushing noise. When I asked what the noise was, dh replied "Oh don't worry, its just a dodgy tap" then lost 5 hours as I flaked out!!!!

divastrop you didn't have the same midwife as me did you?? She injected me with pethidine without my consent, telling me that I wasn't deal with the pain I told her I didn't want it as I was in premature labour and know it can cause breathing problems, she said it would be fine as long as I didn't deliver in the next 4 hours, I delivered dd2 2 hours later who had an apger score of 5!!!

Very sweet and kind doula: 'remember what we talked about, imagine it as a lovely beautiful flower, opening its petals'

Me: 'IT DON'T FEEL LIKE NO F*CKING FLOWER!!!!!'

followed by

'I F*UCKING HATE MIRIAM STOPPARD!'

Later found her yukky 1980s 'birth' book at the bottom of the recycling bin. I vaguely recall dumping it there afterwards but it's all a bit of a blur.

MW: You're going to have a sore throat tomorrow if you keep screaming like that.

i didn't even swear at her!!

Several memories on here of women being told not to scream, keep quiet etc. I have the opposite experience: I thought I made rather a lot of noise having ds. Six months later, the student midwife on whose neck I had hung, recognised me in Debenhams and said "That was the calmest birth I'd ever been at".

OBGYN: WE HAVE TO DO AN EMERGENCY C SECTION. NOW!

ME: WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?

OBGYN: WE HAVE TO DO AN EMERGENCY C SECTION. NOW!

ME: PLEASE BE GENTLE, I'VE WORKED VERY HARD ON MY ABS.

She was too, abs fully intact, it's just that they are now hidden below rolls of blubber which I have to tuck into my jeans

after many hours of painful labour, DP turns to me and says 'i can see his head, i could pull him out from here.' cue me, screaming at the top of my lungs 'well f*ing pull him out then!'