Did you have a 'Painless Labour'?

[Pruners]

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No. On the contrary I seem to recall agonising pain that made me whimper like a hurt animal.

Until the epidural that is. Then I had a party, curry, did a few crosswords and a long chat with the midwife.

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Sort of - words I would use are intense, pressure, feelings of 'oh no, another contractions's coming', feeling miserable, elation, stingy, tired, uncomfortable, what was that (out of water on to dry land and contractions went from 0-100 bang bang bang and I wasn't entirely sure what was going on!).....

DH looking at me saw extreme pain on my face though.

Moving back to the subject matter [gets cattleprod ready]

Did you have a painless labour?

haha arfishy! You said everything that I was going to say (except for the manic hahahahahahahahahahahahaha that was going to open my post....!)

more of an intense sensation rather than pain for me - was very quick and was fully dilated within about 2 hours of the first contraction. I think if I had a much longer labour I might have a diffent take on it!

[Wields Cattleprod]

Are you SURE that's what you wanted to say Scarlet?

[bzzzzz]

My second labour was.
The midwife went to do a stretch and sweep and found I was 7cm dilated. I hadn't really felt a thing apart from a bit of back ache. I then dilated fully with no pain ( I was up walking about and chatting quite happily on the phone)Once I was fully dilated, my waters broke. Then it hurt.A lot.

Sorry, don't know what came over me, of course i meant to say it was bloody awful and i never want to go through that again...

I was going to do a maniacal laugh too. But now I'm just going to pull this face at people who say they did!

with drugs or without?

That's much more like it Scarlet.

[puts cattleprod away]

It's not possible is it?

And from me a big big big NO!!!

Hell no - but certainly quick both times so very manageable

I like to think that my body is very efficient having spat out two babies in 2hrs 45 + 2hrs 15 respectively!

a lady at one of my baby classes only found out she was in established labour and 4cm dilated at her routine mw appointment. so her labour was presumably pain free for quite a while!!

no, but was cope-able with

though am worried am preggers now and am trembling with fear at the prospect of another birth...

Humm

I wouldn't say painfree, no. BUT I wouldn't say my second labour was painful as such.

I was fully dilated & still on the general ward when a passing mw looked at me (counting through a contraction) & asked if I was feeling any urge to push. I realised I was. Dd was born about 20 mins later (everything was so fast the mw forgot to check the actual time of birth) If I hadn't had a bleed in early labour & been summounded in, I suspect I'd have given birth with just dh.

Forgot all about pain relief (no, honestly) until they started macrame-ing me up again afterwards.

If it helps at all, I have shitty pregnancies...

I'm trying to think of the right word for it. There was pain. (Obviously)

But at no point did I think
"agggggghhhhh, that REALLY bloody hurts"

Except when dh went over a speed bump at the height on one contraction

Er - no.

My mother did - she said she could feel the contractions in the sense that something tightend but nothing more - hospital initially refused to believe she was in established labour. She has never however claimed that the delivery (ie big head and small aperture) was painless!

She was slighly surprised to hear me shrieking in agony. Clearly does not run in the family.

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Well I had a mild back ache both times but no real pain, but I shell em like peas, No pain meds at all with either
DS1 15 mins 5 pushes
DS2 19 mins 3 pushes

Stiches after DS1 hurt though

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