There were a few things that worried me about giving birth, especially due to trauma in my past. I was worried about lack of control, unwanted touching, not being able to choose who came in or who saw me, being trapped and unable to leave a bed, or a room, or a position, any level of nakedness or exposure.
please note I understand things can go wrong in birth that puts the above into perspective but I can assure you that a mother having panic attacks or flashbacks is not great for the baby or intervention level with birth
i was luckily able to have my births in my own environment which helped, it turned out I could not keep still at all in labour so spent the vast majority of my labours outdoors, walking, then later indoors but I roamed around the house constantly and never was able to sit or lie down. I was lucky to have hands off medical support which meant although I had a midwife with me she never touched me and asked about sensations and my needs verbally instead. In three births there was never a need for any actual touching, although during my second birth I did have to explain this over and over again to the attending midwives as they did continually ask to touch, feel, insert! They were always asking me to ‘pop’ places, like pop yourself down here on the sofa, bed, etc so they could touch, examine etc and I kept having to tell them that wasn’t what I needed.Perhaps they were not as good at being a midwife as the first one!
I was able to have my babies relatively quietly with a lock on my door, a lock on my bathroom, control over who came in and out of my space, control of who saw what and when, and without being subject to intimate and traumatic exams by strangers. The occasional small complication occurred like meconium in the waters, a back to back baby, a baby with the hand on their head, so it wasn’t totally smooth but all babies were born crying and had no ill effects. I gave birth each time standing up as I apparently cannot sit down at all, first baby was born on the stairs, second in the bathroom as I was trying to hide from the midwives and third in the bedroom because the others were playing downstairs.
No stitches or tears, no prolapses or continence issues, no real interruption to our daily life at all in terms of my physical recoveries. So life as normal in terms of essentials like shopping, school runs, kids clubs, health appointments. My third baby needed daily health appointments in the next town so I took her there and back on the bus from the day she was born. I didn’t go swimming or running for some weeks after my births and had to work back to pre pregnancy fitness. But other than that, no lasting effects from giving birth, except three kids, stretch marks and a stain on the hall carpet.