Why did I find the drip so painful?

[Scoutingaround]

Hi everyone I am hoping someone can help!
DC is 6 months old and is lovely. I had a long and relatively difficult induction as baby was overdue. I’ve made peace with it all and had debrief with midwife. However the thing that I really struggle with is the memory of being on the drip before the epidural.
I got to 3cm in the pessary and breathing techniques etc were working well. However then I was put on the drip and it was absolutely unbearable. How did I go from feeling fairly calm and in control to feeling utterly out of control in half an hour? Also this was when the drip was only on 4 - apparently it can go up to 30?! Was I just a total wimp?!
I just don’t understand how I got in such a state so quickly.

@agentcooper i hope you feel better about things now women are fed such nonsense about childbirth women are suffering with guilt and trauma wondering what they did wrong it is really sad.

@Mrsjayy thank you This thread has honestly been a revelation. So thank you Scoutingaround

Drip with first baby. When people say giving birth to their kid was the best day of their life I just grimace. It was so bad I would have taken suicide if offered at that moment! No drip with second- a walk in the park by comparison. I truly believe that pain (and hence pain relief) in labour has NOTHING to do with “bravery” and attitude and a whole shit-ton to do with factors like position/duration/speed. Not to mention the sodding drip.

I ended up on the drip during labour complications. However I had very luckily read on here not to accept it without epidural and I somehow remembered this in the heat of the moment. They weren't going to give me one automatically, despite the fact that I was in a pretty bad state thanks to my stuck occiput posterior baby.
The contractions from the drip were so intense they shook my body but luckily I couldn't feel a thing and even managed to get some rest. Unfortunately I had to have an instrumental delivery but this was due to baby's position.
So my advice is definitely get the epidural before letting them give you syntocin. It's a bit of a trump card.

How barbaric that some women are being denied pain relief with this.

I agree - to deny pain relief for the drip is utterly barbaric.
@AgentCooper I am so pleased this thread has been helpful. My midwife told me that hardly anyone has the drip without an epidural - she had an epidural when she had it!
There is so much crap out there about birth it makes me really angry. Women are being made to feel like failures simply because they weren’t lucky (and I believe it is totally down to luck) and didn’t have a nice calm waterbirth. When in fact we grew and birthed a person - how is that in any way a failure? Plus the baby couldn’t care less!

Yes OP you've hit the nail on the head, it's luck. There's a whole industry that seems to have grown around misinforming women about things like this in my view. Over a quarter of first time mothers in the UK experience complications in deliveries.
It would be great to know in advance that you should have the epidural beforehand.
I had a very difficult emergency forceps procedure, I had no idea it could be so brutal when I consented to it or about the risks from third degree tears etc and I would describe myself as someone who's relatively well informed.
The only plus side is I guess I am well prepared for next time.

You are definitely not a wimp.

First baby - was induced following broken waters at 32 weeks and getting an infection. I went from nothing to pushing in 25 mins, too fast for an epidural and it was horrendous. Ended up with just gas and air, then an episiotomy and forceps. I thought it couldn't get any worse........

Second baby - full term, normal quite quick labour which then slowed down and contractions stopped after I was made to push for far too long when the doctor was called away, given the drip and again it happened so fast so no chance of epidural. Again just gas and air. Followed by episiotomy and ventouse, shoulders stuck for quite a while, and a lot of stitches after she eventually came out. She weighed 10lb.

I would say in the case of my second labour the pain of the contractions after I had the drip was ten fold the pain level of before the drip.

But everyone has totally different experiences.

Personally for me, it has meant I wouldn't consider another child as the second labour in particular traumatised me quite badly.

I had the drip, without epidural. I thought the dr and midwife were being pushy trying to make me have one when the drip was inserted so was stubborn and refused to have it.
Later on when midwife was turning the drip up as contractions were strong enough but not frequent enough she went near it again and I told her not to touch it or I would break her legs.

I feel that sums up how much I enjoyed the experience if I’m honest.
Helped by the fact they didn’t believe I was fully dilated and ready to push and argued with me for a couple hours about it, only realising I was telling the truth when deciding they couldn’t trace baby and wanted to put a clip on his head, to realise they could see his head 🙄

Needless to say number 2 will be a home birth as I wanted last time and I’ll be refusing to transfer in. I’d rather have an unattended homebirth than a repeat of the last one

I must be in the minority, as I didn't find the drip that bad? I was terrified beforehand because of the horror stories I had heard about it, but it was actually OK. I used a TENS machine for pain relief (epidural wasn't offered but I didn't want one unless I couldn't cope) and I didn't like G&A.
BUT I was lucky that it was relatively quick - I think I fully dilated in 3 hours and then had 1.5 hours of pushing. I'm sure if I had been on the drip for a long time I may have needed an epidural too. The worst thing about the drip for me was the restriction in movement - with the cannulas (one in each hand as I needed antibiotics) and the wires for the monitors, it was very restrictive. I sat on a birth ball (as I basically refused to sit on the bed) but I wanted freedom to move.

I have since had a non-augmented labour and the drip labour was certainly worse in comparison, but for me (thankfully!!) not to the level of the experiences shared here.

Regardless of my own experience I would never call any woman a wuss for finding labour difficult, augmented or otherwise, as we are all different with different pain thresholds and experiences and the main thing is getting through the process in one piece and with a healthy baby! Childbirth is hard and women are bloody warriors!!

Wow, reading through this thread has been so eye opening and I wish I’d read it before I was induced 6 months ago. I went in at 37 weeks due to a small baby and went through all the stages of induction before going on the drip, including a particularly unpleasant experience with a balloon catheter (it’s a bit like the discomfort of a smear test, they said. Um, no.) I said that I’d like to try the drip without the epidural although I had heard that the contractions could be painful but assumed I’d be able to start with gas and air. In the event, 2 goes of gas and air made me sick so I ended up getting to 9cm without needing anything and then begged for the epidural - by which time, you guessed it, it was too late. I did just about cope and ended up having to push DD out very quickly as she was in distress and her heartbeat was low, so they gave me an episiotomy. But I hated being strapped to the bed as they needed to monitor her continuously - they wouldn’t even let me turn from my back, which I’ve never fully understood why. My DD was only 5lb and I’ll always wonder what the impact was of such forceful contractions on her tiny little body, although I understood why they wanted her out early. I would like another and have a lot to think about what I would want to happen next time round, as I don’t think I could go through that again. It really is torture.

You're not a wimp in the slightest. My midwife said she would not advise administering the drip without epidural