Rate your first labour from a 1 to 10

[34ransum]

This is a random question, and I'm very aware you can't really objectively quantify a labour and delivery. There will likely have been moments of many emotions and times of pain, worry, relief..

I guess I'd like to know what the average first birth is like. Do we just hear the exciting / horror stories but the majority go smoothly?

I ask as my first labour was an emergency c section, but nothing dramatic. Baby didn't want to come, limited pain as I had the epidural, all was well that ended well. I was disappointed as I had my heart set on a vaginal birth, so I personally didn't feel proud or empowered.

If 1 was a dramatic and painful experience and 10 was the labour I'd hoped for, I'd rate it as a 6 out of 10- all was okay, nothing too eventful, but it wasn't the euphoric natural delivery I'd planned and hoped for.

In this last year, 3 of my SILs, 2 close friends and a few Facebook friends have all had natural and pretty straightforward births. Is this really the norm for 1st timers? Or were they quite lucky?

If you feel like sharing, was your 1st birth easy and wonderful (a 10) or a shit show (1), or somewhere in between?

Probably 8's. Knocked off points for having pre-eclampsia both times and having to be induced. I have no idea what it's like to go into labour or get near my due date. I had an emergency C-section with my second, but I remember that labour far more fondly than my first one.

16 hours, first 13 were more of an annoyance. Last 3 started with TENS then added morphine and gas and air.

Midwife confiscated the gas and air as I was exhausted and trying to go to sleep (I was so over birthing by that point). I was so incandescent with rage with her playing tug of war with MY gas and air, I pushed so flipping hard my DS shot straight out 🤣.

Edit to add the rating - 10/10 Wouldn't want to do it again though but was straightforward.

I’ll vote mine a 1

Hmm, interesting. I think I'd give my first an 8. Long labour, epidural, forceps... but I felt listened to and supported all the way through except when DH decided to order in pizza, when all I wanted was hospital and an epidural Care in hospital was very good, as was the food.

DC2 a 6.5, should've been better than with DC1, labour was half the time but I had a bossy midwife who made me lie down when I wanted to be upright. Then I had to wait ages for stitches, which really hurt a lot. I hated that hospital experience. Different hospital to DC1, because we'd moved house.

DC3 a 9.5, fabulous planned home birth, quickish for me - about five hours - no stitches, quick recovery. I had two amazing midwives with me. If the G&A hadn't run out before I wanted it to, I'd have rated it 10/10.

The issue is you won’t realise the repercussions of that “bad tearing” for many years. Yet you still think you had a “straightforward vaginal birth with no major complications”. Same as OP’s friends and SILs. Unfortunately, most women are uneducated about the long term effects of these so-called ‘straightforward’ vaginal births. If you read any of the numerous government reviews of maternity services, you will see there is a huge disconnect between women who feel “lucky” after giving birth with ‘only’ bad tearing and the medical reality that typically only presents years later.

10 , it’s the reason I only have one child. Boring for other people but life changing for me.

Double posted for some reason

If I'm honest I'm really confused. Lots of people here saying they think their births were 9 or 10 out of 10, and go on to say how it was excruciating, they had stitches etc. I don't see how being in agony for hours could be a 10 out of 10 experience?

I guess we're all different. My first section was a 10 out of 10 because there was genuinely zero pain or discomfort with it. My second I gave it a 9 because I slightly felt the sensation of them rooting around for baby. It didn't hurt or anything though.

Are people giving it 10 out of 10 because childbirth is inevitably painful and it went as well as it could?

I’d give my first birth a 9/10. Spontaneous labour, attended hospital at 1-2cm; had a baby in my arms 2.5 hours later. I’ve knocked a point off because I wasn’t given any pain relief (as they felt I wasn’t in labour) so it was quite painful. By the time they realised I was 10cm and pushing I was told it was “too late” for gas and air.

@Babyboomtastic I think people are considering the rating within the context of childbirth, which we know is generally painful. I had an “ideal birth” in my mind which I knew would be painful. It included: spontaneous birth, gas and air, no complications/interventions. And that’s what I got (minus the gas and air). So I walked away feeling pretty pleased about the whole thing.

Because giving birth is a lot more complex than just the level of physical pain. If you saw my earlier post, I gave my first birth a high mark for how empowered, listened to and cared for I felt, because I gave birth in a stand alone midwife unit, all very low tech home from home environment. I wanted that environment rather than a very medicalised birth. I knew the midwife from my ante natal appointments and I felt hugely supported. As a first birth, on just a bit of a gas and air, the pain was extreme and it was quite a long labour so if I was just measuring the pain level it would be a different score.

i then described my third birth which needed to be a c section as baby was breech and placenta low lying. It was pain free as I had an epidural but I didn’t enjoy the whole hospital experience, I felt the birth was ‘done to me’ rather than by me and the after care wasn’t great. Obviously needed to be a c section so I’m not disagreeing with that decision but it didn’t make for an empowering experience. For level of pain though, it was really easy.

so I don’t think it’s as simple as people saying ‘my birth was excruciating but 10 out of 10!’ It’s more that there are different ways of measuring a good birth. A birth can be very painful but if a woman feels listened to and supported, she can feel better about it than if she’s pain free with an epidural but perhaps feels out of control, or in a very medicalised environment or even just things like lots of staff shift changes can affect the overall experience

I find it hard to score. It took five hours, was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, even with pethidine (and I’ve had gallstones and kidney stones) - the painkillers made me sick, which didn’t help - and DS was a meconium baby so had to be whooshed away to make sure he didn’t take a breath before they could suck it out. Midwife was wonderful - I remain eternally grateful to her - and DS was fine, for which I am ever thankful - I saw a telly programme about babies in special care and one was a meconium baby who died at ten days, so I really did and do count myself lucky. (DS is now 40.)

I posted with high ish marks because I got the birth I wanted (give or take a few points) the pain is inevitable! It’s about hopefully
getting the experience you want. My friends went through 3 days of labour, emergency C sections, inductions, forceps everything I really didn’t want! I was adamant I didn’t want an epidural and was scared to have a C section (although well aware what ever was best for the baby)

I marked high cause I had a quick labour, small tear but honestly even that was fine sewn up and wouldn’t even know after that I’ve had it. Limited pain relief and thankfully no C section.
Hoping it goes as well if not better in a few weeks when I do it all over again 😂🤞🏻

I'm glad you got the experience you wanted.
I think pain is an inevitability of natural childbirth. Probably why I didn't go for that route! I'm a total wimp so went for the pain-free option 😂

First was an utter shit show. Unproductive labour at home for several days, moved to hospital to be accelerated and epidural administered. Told midwives baby was posterior, they said he wasn’t 🤷‍♀️

instrumental delivery (ventouse) and then into surgery for retained placenta. Baby was posterior but so big that when they prodded my belly he filled it anyway 🙄

Second birth was at home, 10lb baby with shoulder dystocia but quickly remedied.

I’ve had 2 home births, they’re really not the beautiful process they’re sold as. I’m glad I did it that way but, equally, after my first delivery I was just glad we both got through it safely. Birth is painful and primeval and like being run over by a truck. It’s also
important to remember that pregnancy and childbirth is still one of the more dangerous things we do.

Mine was a 7 or 8. It was a textbook birth- pretty quick, very straightforward, no drugs, no stitches. But I can’t give it a 10 because I was TERRIFIED. I really wasn’t in the hypnobirthing headspace I hoped I would be in, and spent most of it desperately trying to ‘get away’ from the pain. I was really frightened and thought I was dying. It’s a miracle that the mechanics of the birth went so well given how much I mentally fought against it.

By the second DC, I’d obviously learnt a lot from my first experience. I stayed at home and again had a fast and straightforward labour with no pain relief and no stitches. I’d give that birth a 10 because that time I wasn’t scared- I knew I wasn’t dying. There was a sense I was working with the process rather than against it. I felt in control and that was the key difference. Minutes after I’d pushed him out I thought ‘I want to do that again!’ (I didn’t- DH vetoed a third DC).

100% I had another friend who had an epidural on her 3rd baby and was like why didn’t I do this before!! 😂😂

Its just my worst nightmare the thought of an epidural (although would appreciate the lack of pain 😆)

Three. I planned a home birth and my midwife was brilliant and was really in favour of homebirths, and supportive and knowledgeable about them. I went 16 days overdue - I was pressured to induce but opted for daily scans instead. Everything fine. When I finally went into labour, it turned out my midwife was off-duty (I naively thought this wasn't a thing, I know better now), so another midwife was sent. She was much older, and I could just sense straight away she was really uncomfortable with homebirths.

For some reason, she found it necessary totell me she had come away from a meal at a restauarant with her husband (this was a Saturday night), implying that I was ruining her plans. I just lost my groove completely. I had been coping OK, but she insisted on gas and air, and that just decentred me and sent me into a different space. It made me lose my mind, and not be able to think straight.

She insisted on calling an ambulance because the progress was too slow. It really wasn't - I genuinely think she just wanted to go home. I don't say that to be unkind, it's just really my feeling. In hopsital (at which point I was so stressed and unsettled that I was asking for all sorts, and being in vast amounts of pain after being rocked around in an unncessary ambulance), after delivering the placenta, I was left in pools of blood (not noticed until I got up to go to the toilet quite a while after, and I noticed it myself) and almost needed a blood transfusion, but not quite apparently. I got stitched up because of tears by a massive man, which was surreal - but thanks, man!

That night, I had my baby with me in the hospital bed, and every ten minutes someone would come in to tell me to put her back in the cot next to the bed. Led to a really unsettled night. My instincts were to hold my baby and have her with me in bed (by the way, I know that's not for everyone, for good reasons, but it's what was right for me and my chld - we co-slept for a good long while after and it was the right thing for us) - and everytime I had to put her down she'd start mewling. So no rest for either of us. I understand that's what's they've been told - not their fault, hospital policy etc - but it just wasn't what I'd planned / envisaged for first child!

I'm generally a very kind and forgiving person but I can honestly say the midwife really wrecked my experience. My actual midwife would have seen me through it at home, I'm sure.

But, 10 years later, I have a healthy, gorgeous daughter. So, cheers!

An easy 10.
I just have the experience of 1 labour so far (fingers crossed for the little one inside me, after 3 losses since my first!). I was absolutely terrified about giving birth beforehand. To my surprise, it was quick and easy. My waters broke a week before my due date, at 11am. Contractions didn't start for an hour or 2 after. The hospital said to get to them at 2pm. I laboured mostly at home and contractions were coming in thick and fast. I was still coping ok at home, on my birthing ball. On the way to the hospital, things were ramping up. By the time we got to the hospital, my body was pushing. We had only been ushered into a room and left. I went to the toilet as I felt I 'needed to poo'. My husband went to get help, as I couldn't stop pushing (and of course it wasn't poo that was trying to come😅). Once someone finally came and examined me they realised I was fully dilated and my son was on his way. I finally asked for gas and air. That was enough pain relief for me! He was out in a few pushes and I remember thinking 'was that it?' and I immediately said I'd do it again.
From water breaking to my son being born was 4 hours. Not bad for a first labour! And he was a petite 6lb 7oz, which probably helped.

First was a 9/10
8 hours, no pain meds, easy peasy
2nd was horrific. 37 hours, both myself and daughter nearly died and my son (daughters twin) did die.
8 weeks later I was back in hospital haemorrhaging so badly I nearly died again and needed emergency surgery