Birth was NOT as bad as I thought it would be

[Jane101]

I've just got the Mumsnet news roundup e.mail which says that "Women are "terrified" of giving birth, and find it "more painful than they ever imagined", according to a survey by Mother and Baby magazine. I'd just like to say that, although I know everyone's different and I have heard some horror stories (and please don't anyone add any to this thread, I want it to be reassuring to people) I found that giving birth was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. There were things I wished I'd done differently, like deciding beforehand whether to agree to have my waters broken, and discussing birth positions before the contractions got too close together for talking. But I can honestly say that, although of course it hurt, it wasn't the unbearable agony that I thought it might be. I'm a complete coward and planned to have an epidural if I felt I needed it, but it never got to the point where I couldn't cope. I hope this is reassuring to anyone who's really worried.

um,droile,as someone who hardly ever posts i truly don't want to start an arguement,but pls,what are you implying by your statement?as someone who has in part been put off having another baby by two different birth experiences[1 VB,1CS]i feel abit put out,most certainly all i wanted was a healthy baby ,i didnt care how i arrived at that.

badcat, I'm on your side. A healthy baby is the main thing, but I disagree with the implication that we should put up with anything to get that. For some of us, it was a lot more than a bit of pain. Does that clear up the misunderstanding?

badcat - try long term health problems, numerous operations, subsequent loss of career..... I could go on.

What I meant was that we'd want to not have these happen - not that we would want more of it!

Willow2, are you ok atm? i have been thinking about you. your posts recently have made me think you are possibly a bit miserable? apologies if this is rather impertinent - you haven't posted an sos. anyway, toddler blues, bad labour - we should talk! will i see you on fri 18th? iirc - we will both be in the smokers' sin bin!

bossykate - aaah you sweetie. I am fine although combination of trying to lose weight, stop smoking (sorry, no sin bin although I have waivered a few times over the odd glass of wine, and I imagine there will be a fair few of these on the 18th) and being driven up the wall by my ds has possibly made me a tad more stressed than usual. I have never really gone in to detail about my lovely birth story, and don't plan to do it here, but just wanted to get the point across that things can, and do, go badly wrong at times - so much so that having a child can change your life more than you had ever believed possible. If I had been more aware of some of these things I would have opted for a c section rather than go on for two days in my desperate attempt for a "natural birth" only for things to go badly wrong anyway. Which all makes me sound as though I am sitting here thinking about slitting my wrists - which couldn't be further from the truth. But I do feel badly let down by what happened to me. It shouldn't have happened and hopefully steps I'm taking (which again I don't want to go in to here) will make the hospital concerned admit to as much.
Anyway, gory birth aside, yes I am coming next week. Booked the sitter today - hoorah!!! Really looking forward to it so will c u there.

well it looks as though i will be on my own in the sin bin!

well done for quitting - i need some inspiration. i'm itching to talk birth stories - if you could bear it - have some unresolved feelings that i just don't want to post here. but don't worry! - i have other topics of conversation, honest!

again, well done for vanquishing the demon weed and apologies if i have inadvertently made it seem as though you have "problems" - eek, foot in it etc.

hope to see you next week.

Where is next week.. I must have missed this.... can anyone let me know ???

BK - no apologies needed - can share and compare if you fancy it on Friday!

Blimey - just realised am on "not as bad as I thought it would be" and not "Wish I'd known more". V. sorry for turning this thread on its head.

Thought about this thread tonight as I'm having my coil out tomorrow eeeek and will, hopefully, need this in months/years to come! Thanks for starting it. Willow2, ah well

I adored being pregnant and really enjoyed all 4 births. I had pethidine the first time but in the end hadn't really needed it because I delivered 2 hours later where i though it would be at least 6.
I feel so sad for women who do not have a good experience and as a midwife I try to ensure women are able to make the choices that work the best for them.

Best of luck www!
I can't believe no one has mentioned one really positive thing about giving birth. IT MEANS YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT ANY MORE I couldn't wait to swap my huge tummy for a smaller, saggy one. This thought kept me going. I was lucky enough to have two straighforward labours - gas/air/pethidine for the first. Gas/air for the second.

Second time around I read Penolepe Leach's 'Baby and Child'. The section on what your baby feels when you are in labour affected me deeply and helped me lots. I think it's essential reading for anyone about to go through labour.

Throughout each contraction of my second labour I focussed on what my baby was going through as he was being squeezed and pushed out of me - the new sensations and the fear. I tried to send reassuring thought signals to him. Concentrating on him definitely distanced me from my pain. Penolepe Leach is the best pain killer I know! Being relatively calm, I also was breathing correctly without thinking about it ( and with no pre labour practice).

Mears - would you adopt me?

I must admit I feel incredibly lucky with dd's birth. It didn't take long, only 6 hours start to finish and I had only gas and air because there was no time the contractions made me dilate so fast!

I must admit to feeling a real sense of achievement during and after giving birth and really enjoying the whole experience. In fact, I am looking forward to doing it again. Is that sick ?!

Tillysmum, I think its great you had such a good labour. Its just a shame that a lot of the mums especially those who have epidurals, CS etc don't feel that way. I'm sure its all to do with how in control you feel and how reassured you are, rather than the actual levels of pain, speed, complications etc (don't shout at me everyone, I KNOW it can be bloomin awful but I do feel that quality of care makes all the difference). Everyone should feel chuffed after a birth however it goes.

My first was tough and I was nervous but my second was wonderful and like you I can't wait to do it again. I know that I can cope with whatever comes this time and at the end of it all will be a beautiful baby which makes it all worthwhile. Part of my problem first time round was not quite believeing I'd make it to the end!

Thanks Katherine and I do agree with you about the control thing. I was lucky enough to be in a fantastic midwife run birthing centre which was just lovely and so great from a support point of you in that they were very encouraging in terms of keeping active, using the pool and whatever else I wanted. They gave me amazing support and i won't ever forget it. I felt very relaxed and that helped so much.

I also think that swimming helped me. I used to swim everyday while I was pregnant and it certainly helped me with the breathing (crawl did anyway).

Tillysmum - you're not sick, and I for one am delighted that you had a brilliant birth - don't want anyone to think for a minute that I resent anyone else having a good experience!

I am slightly alarmed by this thread and a little nervous about contributing my views here. I actually thought that survey was quite realistic in its conclusion. IMO, most women giving birth won't have experienced major pain or been in hospital previously and so it is likely to be a shock. Also, all the preparation in the world doesn't help if you're faced with some fairly common problems (a baby lying back-to-back for example or an epidural that doesn't work well).
Perhaps more important in the birth experience is something that virtually never happens, which is a kind of 'debriefing' afterwards. After my first labour, (it's OK, no details!) I literally had flashbacks for weeks - no forgetting there - until a cranial osteo that I saw for my ds's problems took me through the labour to establish where his problems had arisen. In going through it with her, I was able to come to terms with what had happened to me. I also got a friendly registrar to take me through my notes when I was pg with No 2 to sort out a few other questions about what might happen second time round.
I think it's terrific that many women have great labours - I am truly envious - and certainly preparation and good care helps enormously. But in the end, some of us will always have a bad time of it. We can reduce those numbers but not eliminate them and to go into labour thinking it will be a breeze is as bad as going in thinking it will be awful. We need honesty from other women and a proper balanced sharing of our experiences, not just in the immediate aftermath when most women tend to talk about it, but later too when you can see both sides to it. For example, I went to an ante-natal yoga class with my second child and somehow only the happy labours were ever described afterwards, never the more complex ones. I had to button my lip! But the experience of my first labour certainly informed my second, and as I had many of the same problems, I was better able to deal with them second time round and it all ended much more happily. If I'd had that knowledge the first time ... but none of my friends who had bad labours wanted to tell me their stories beforehand. I felt quite betrayed!
So I hope I'm not too out of tune with the tone of this thread. I believe we need information - all information, good and bad, so that childbirth becomes a normal part of life and not some strange one-off experience that makes women part of a secret club that others aren't let in on till they've crossed the line themselves.
If anyone thinks this isn't positive enough for this thread, let me just add that I did go on to have two children and, whatever happened, in the final assessment, I still count their birth-days as two of the best of my life, because at the end of it all, I had my beautiful children.

Oops, sorry, all. Now realise I should have gone down a bit and contributed to the 'wish I'd known more' thread ... Apologies. I'm gone.

Inkpen - you have put into words exactly what I was trying to say when I started the other thread. But you did it soooo much more eloquently!

I'm with Tigermoth...although my first labor was a 40 hour nightmare ending in a c-section...it still meant I was no longer PREGNANT which was a 9 month nightmare as far as I was concerned. So 2nd time around I was in an odd way looking forward to labor as it signified the end of my pregnancy.

SofiaAmes - What a very long labor. How did you ever manage? I give a lot of credit to anyone dealing with that amount of labor and then a c-section on top of that.