what was the worst bit of giving birth or afterbirth for you?

[ogri]

mine was, had to have an emergency c section, so had a drain in the cut. the next day i was in agony , felt like the drain was rubbing on something inside me. i couldnt move.
i couldnt let the doctor or nurse take the drain out as it was so sore. i had to eventually pull it out little by little myself. it was in a good 6 inches, not 2 inches like i was told. as soon as it was out i was like a new woman. i was up and about. couldnt believe a little tube could cause so much pain.

All of it up to about 8 weeks when ds stopped crying and sleeping all the time and was a bit more interesting!

The pain, the tear, the four mw and obs coming to decide who was competent enough to do the stitches, the lochia and big fat pads you have to wear for ages, the noisy maternity ward, the milk coming in, the early difficulties with bf, the pain that lasted for weeks, the lack of sleep, the crying, the worrying about if i was doing it all properly.

Don't let me put you off, though. I just like a good moan! And everything's great now, after 7 mpnths, couldn't be better!!

Hmmm...

Post natal ward absoultely disgraceful. Attitude of the staff very unhelpful. One old shrivelled up cow of a midwife (you can tell this is recent experience - still bitter) made it quite clear I wasn't doing best for baby by choosing to go for a shower while she was still asleep rather than wake her up and feed her before I cleaned myself up - WTF??? "Baby has to come first". Yes, and she does, but this mummy is full of blood you silly old cow. I was so vunerable, she managed to press all the right buttons.

Haemmorhoids. At least with stitches, you can find a reason why you have them. Haemorrhoids are a painful nightmare. One friend of mine, who's daughter is 21, celebrates her haemorrhoid's birthday along with her daughter's every year. She said last week she felt like tying a ribbon round it to mark it's 21st birthday. That really made me laugh

the worst bit was DS bawling all night on the first night ('I'm huuuuuuuuuuuuungry! Feed me! Feed me! Nooooooooooo - leave the nappy alone!) and having that feeling in the pit of your stomach that this was how life was going to be like for a long, long, long time.

10 months later and even I am surprised at how long his sleeplessness has gone on for. If I'd know this I would have left hom on the doorstep for social services

With dd1 - the midwife telling me that I was ready to push and then saying "oh - hang on" as the cord had prolapsed - had to be rushed to theatre for emergency ventouse delivery.

With dd2 - having had a wonderful home birth, being in tremendous pain whilst waiting for the placenta (having opted for a physiological 3rd stage) - 45 minutes later and no sign of it, asking midwives to give me the injection and then suffering a PPH (1.5 litres of blood loss) and having to spend the first night in hospital being monitored (instead of tucked up at home in my own bed with dh).

Has to be the hour and a half of sitting up on the bed, hooked up with needle for epidural (but alas NO DRUGS YET! ) had to stay sitting up whilst anaesthetist did emergency in A&E ....

Not happy at all

But, to be fair, he did save someone's life, so I think I'll let the guy off eh?

A close second has to be, bleeding nipples due to barracuda baby that sucked for 1.5hrs at a time, 24 hrs a day.. midwives kept telling me that i had no choice but to carry on, despite being so unbelievably exhausted (stiches due to ventouse delivery )
-luckily once milk came in, felicity was happy and very much stuffed!

Post-birth, the door shutting behind DH as he left for home after two days of physical and psychological torture.

Message withdrawn

With DD1: Went in to hospital, most of the time had a junior Dr and student midwife with me because they were short-staffed. I went through 1 cylinder of gas/air and midwife told me not to have any more because it, "deadens the sensation to push." Too bad I went on for another 6 hrs with no pain relief. Student midwife went for dinner at 1pm and midwife said to her, "don't worry, we won't do anything till you get back." 2.30pm started pushing. 5.00pm, decided they might have to do a C Section so given epidural. DD born at 5.53pm by ventouse and had stitches as well. Fed DD, taken to postnatal ward and left. Wasn't offered anything to eat/drink, or a bath/shower. A nurse found some sandwiches for me at 10pm. Nurses discovered I hadn't been cleaned up at 2am, then I was offered a bath. Was told at breakfast that I probably wouldn't be allowed out that day but I didn't want to spend anymore time there so left at 2.30pm. Not surprisingly, a week later, I went down with an infection.
DD2: Sometimes I'm amazed I went back to the same hospital to have DD2. Maybe I did to prove to myself that it could be a completely different experience. This time, I went in at 2am, she was born at 6.50am using gas/air, I had breakfast and dinner, and a bath (I was actually wheeled in a wheelchair to the bathroom as opposed to being made to walk after DD1 was born), and left at 2.00pm. A wonderful experience this time around!

All of it! Like having a leg amputated without anaesthetic. Have as many drugs as humanly possible!

Being told that I couldn't have an epiduarl because the fire alarm was going off and anyway I'd have to be evacuated. Swore at them a few times I think. managed to push her out before walking out to another ward. Natural child birth? No thanks.

Pushing as hard as I possibly could with each contraction to get DS out and then as the contraction passed feeling him being sucked back up again. I actually said to the midwives "Can't you f**ing grab him and pull?" With my dd I'd had an epidural (the best thing in the world) and happily let the contractions do their job for long enough that I didn't need to push all that hard.

this is gross, after the birth of dd1 I had a tear and they put swabs inside me (which should have been taken out hours later).... 2 MONTHS later after taking 3x antibiotics because all the midwives/drs thought I may have infection... I was sent back to the hospital, only to find a swab had been left inside me!!!!!!!!!
GROSSS!!!! Very unpleasant, and I could have died of blood poisoning!!! Oh, the smell and the discomfort of it all!
I didn't know any different as it was my first baby, I thought perhaps that's how it felt after having a baby. I felt like a new woman when it was removed! Sorry if this is TMI

Just felt like being stamped on by a giant for 24hrs, my emergency c-section under general anaesthetic was a welcome relief. Was so f*ed up mentally I had elective C-Section at a different hospital the 2nd time.
BTW, if anyone wants to share their horror story (anonymously) please visit Birth Trauma Association

Oh yes and being made to pull myself up a rope ladder thing to sitting position in bed so I could hold my baby - about 7hours after major abdominal surgery.

Reading dinosaur's entry brought back my 2nd child's birth 6 months ago. I had her from start to finish in 21/2 hours and she came out so quickly that she was not breathing. They had given me some meptid just before I began pushing and it only kicked in once she was born, so I was really out of it and didn't really realise that there was a problem until DH came back and didn't answer me when I said "She is alright isn't she?" - he gave me the photo of her and it was only later that I found out that she had taken ages to begin breathing as she had gone blue and wouldn't breathe and they thought she had brain damage from oxygen deprivation and initial scans. Luckily the second brain scans five days later were clear, but it still makes me cry thinking about it - 9 months of looking after her and it all could have been taken away in 30 minutes.

contractions, which had stopped at about 2cm dilated, suddenly coming back with an enormous vengeance while i was having a poo - thinking i wouldm't be able to get up from the toilet
having got to 10cm quickly after a wonderful epidural, the contractions stopping again and only restarting slowly despite syntocin drip - waiting, having waters broken, finally being allowed to push, and all this time ds's ctg trace going up and down in a way that completely freaked me. obstetrician turning up and saying 'the ctg doesn't look good' . fortunately after that ds got out pretty rapidly with pushing and ventouse and scored 10 on his apgar
asking, the next day, for help with bf and the mw grabbing ds without asking me and shoving him onto my breast
ds having to be treated for jaundice and stay in special care for a few days

oh and the fact that it took a bl**dy age to stitch up my episiotomy - no pain (lovely epidural), just boring while i wanted to be engaging with ds

stitches were awful and they didnt get all the afterbirth out and I gave birth to it 3 days later oohh that hurt. Sorry tmi !

being stitched over 28 hrs post delivery - the pain was awful

Umm, well it would have to be a tie up between the unspeakable agony and umm the unspeakable agony. But if pushed I think I'd have to say the unspeakable agony was the worst bit of all.

And mine was topped off with an emergency CS so heaven only knows how the other angel mummies who make it all the way manage it.

When asked what I'm like at coping with pain I used to say 'dunno really, never had to suffer any' now I would say ' RUBBISH '.....resoundingly

The worst thing about my third birth was knowing that it would be the last time that I would do it.

After I had my daughter I had hundreds of stitches... well ok, it just felt like that.. but they went so tight I could hardly walk, I'm sure they were meant to disolve or some thing but they didn't.. So.. I took them out myself with a pair of scissors and some tweezers... ahhhh the relief....

Rummum

Are you a contortionist,rummum?

the stitches far worse than birth with ds. due in 4 weeks and had chat with mw who says that that amount of pain when being stitched up is unneccessary and to tell them before they start -oh and then complain if they are that painful. no other area of medicine would tolerate patients in that much pain during a proceedure. the rest was painful but could be coped with.

moondog ... I forgot to mention that I used a mirror, lol... and I was horrified by what I saw down there! I'm not sure if it looks any prettier as its not a place I tend to look