What shocked you during your birth? (full hand examinations)

[rochester]

My first baby is due in four months and I would love some honest feedback from ladies who have been there and done that.
After watching 'One Born Every Minuite' last night I saw a midwife putting her whole hand into a woman who was as a result in great pain. I have only just come to terms with pushing a baby out, pushing a hand in is a totaly different matter!
I was shocked not only that this actualy happens but also by my own nievety that I had no idea that this happens!
Thank God I saw this program because nobody has ever told me I would be faced with this. It has left me wondering what else is there I should Know.
I have since found some feeds on Mumsnet about putting no/limited examinations as part of my Birth plan.
Is there anything you have since learnt that you wish you had put in your birth plan?

Actually, I've just remembered one that shocked me with the boys (not with dd as she was born flat and whisked off to be resussitated)...... How hot they were, and that incredible smell

ds1 was so hot when they passed him up to me i thought there was something wrong with him for a second.... then when ds2 was born i had forgotton about it. I gave birth on my knees and the mw passed him through my knees so i could hold him instantly and i almost dropped him in shock at the heat!

Oh!.... and the balls! incredibly huge and red and soft and weird....

i was shocked when i had the automatic blood pressure reader on my arm, which started squeezing my arm incredibly tightly. I nearly passed out when i noticed the vein on my hand was about to explode as they tried to take blood from it earlier so the pressure from the machine was causing my vein to expand! i still have shudders thinking of it. If you ever have to have it on, make sure you havent been pricked with needles in that arm/hand... scary sight.

Most shocking, my waters were actually quite mucous-like, not fluid-like as I thought it would be...

That I didn't care who saw me naked, very unlike me!

That my body would take over and I couldn't stop pushing when asked to - was offered an epidural and said "yes, please!" despite my needle phobia.

That I'd be allowed to push for so long and my resulting piles hurt worse than the stitches from the episiotomy and third degree tear I had. The stitches actually healed much quicker than the piles did!

That I'd be told I needed a blood transfusion three days after giving birth - I assumed I'd be told right away or at least within a day.

That breastfeeding would be so tricky! DS just wouldn't latch on properly, and was about to give up at 6 weeks and then it all suddenly came together. Subsequently, I got enough milk to feed two babies! Goes to show that sometimes if you keep at something, you can get good at it unexpectedly!

Really the most shocking was that despite having a fairly traumatic birth experience, it didn't put me off getting pregnant again, I recovered super quickly!

BTW, can't remember where I read this, but I think sometimes stitches are done right after birth without being numbed because we're meant to be numb down there after the birth for about 10 mins? I'm grateful I was numb from the boobs down from the spinal!

Oh god yes, the cord. I remember looking at this enormous rubbery-looking, meaty skipping rope and a massive placenta and thinking what the HELL is that and how did that fit inside me along with the baby as well?

I also remember being shocked when they put the baby on my chest because it....moved. It was as if I could only associate the baby movements with being in my tummy and it was really weird looking at the baby wiggling its legs and arms around.

Looking back I am also surprised at how relaxed I was about being stitched back up. The midwife was quite inexperienced so she was being supervised while she did it, so there was 2 of them there, shining a massive spotlight at my nether regions for half an hour (they kept re-doing it so it took ages). I was chatting away about loads of things while they worked away. I'm normally very shy about nudity etc as well.

Tulip: No but they are two valid reasons for intervention, the main thrust of the point being that not everyone's body can do it. My situation was similar to show of hands but was "lucky" to have dd turned and delivered by rotational forceps, alive but scarred for life.

The OP asked for our personal experience of wht was shocking, that was mine.

your all great, thankyou.
Hardly done any work today, can't stop checking in to see the latest birth horror I need to face up to .
It is helping in a weird sort of way
just hope I don't have nightmares tonight, well I asked for it!

OP - as a midwife can I just say that our whole hand is not inserted for internals?

It is 2 fingers. On the TV programme there is a sheet covering what is happening but I am sure it must be frightening to think it is a whole hand in there. Let me reassure posters it is not.

Also no-one should get stitches without local anaesthetic.

Just a couple of points I have picked up from this thread.

What suprised me (rather than 'shocked') was that DD kept going back in when I stopped pushing.. Nobody told me that would happen!

Thats good to hear mears I will sleep better now

Glad to hear it

That I would be sent home from MLU, told it would be another 24-48 hours. Baby born 6 hours later.

That my whole body would shake uncontrollably after delivering placenta

Filibou I also had the shaking.
Had given birth on floor on all fours & then was immediately shaking with cold.

OP, I don´t remember any internals hurting,or being given an injection to deliver the placenta.

Well, with first when the MW got to me the head was visible, with second I had first pain at 8cm & certainly didn´t feel that examination.

I´d lost the plug so the MW said she´d better have a look & see what was happening.

Then she said you´re 8cms& I remember thinking "how did she find that out?"

ShowOfHands, your labour sounds very similar to mine except that they managed to turn DS and he was born vaginally.
I was surprised at how much MORE painful my second labour was to my first, being a transverse arrest. The pain was unimaginable, no gaps and seemngly unending as I pushed and pushed to no avail as baby was never going to come out without help.

Framey, ShowOfHands and others it is great hearing you talk about all your traumas. It helps me just to get familiar and comfortable with all the terms and procedures I may be faced with, I will be an expert by the end of this thread!
Filibou Also great to hear your more positive experiance of examinations, so encouraging.
BTW i am having the shaking you are describing just reading this bloomin' thread (only Joking )
I asked for it! (bit like the pregnancy realy!)

I didn't take kindly to VEs but after the first one I just let MW get on with it. I found it extrememly painful and had to use all my mental willpower to let her do it to check how far dilated I was.

I'm actually dreading it next time...

Infact when I look back, the original MW who was supposed to be looking after me walked out when she realised I wasn't a 'straightforward' case and had to get her colleague in to help me through getting the VE. I think it took nearly 15 mins for her to just persuade me, and then to actually get on with something that took literally seconds for her to check. Didn't I feel a total twit . It was still painful though, but that's only because I couldn't relax.

I was shocked at how the contractions could roll into each other, with no break between them.

DC1 - surprised at how beaten up I felt afterwards. Not being able to sit comfortably, everything sore...

stitches

oh yes and the stitches....OUCH for several weeks...

rochester, you'll probably sneeze your baby out in your sleep.

Framey, I had no basis for reference but was utterly shocked. The contractions were 2.5 minutes long and just on top of each other for 2 days. It was so painful all the way through. I knew something was wrong, I could feel the lack of descent and each contraction just wedged her further and further into the wrong bit, squishing her neck. And hours of pushing with no baby, bugger me it was hard. The blue light transfer to hospital was like a metaphorical journey away from everything I anticipated towards everything I was trying to avoid. She was a right state when they eventually went for the sunroof approach. Purple welts and bruises, muscle damage on one side of her neck, a tear from the ventouse. I think we're still in shock now.

rochester, ignore that last paragraph, that's not textbook labour at all, that's a v badly positioned baby.

That my contractions could double peak... Just as it started to ease off it would come back with avengence! And last about 2.5 minutes each!

I was totally shocked that the stitches hurt as much as giving birth
I was shocked that the MW had to put her finger up mu bum to make sure that she hadn't sewn right through to mu bum

I was shocked that it didnt feel like I was going to die.. I had read all sorts of birth stories and had prepared myself for that..

OOH yeah -
I was totally shocked that DH really expected sympathy the day after because his back was a bit achey from bending over the birthing pool.

He got every ounce of sympathy I could muster from my pile cushion

Sorry, the "whole hand examinations" is just rubbish. Needlessly scare-mongering rubbish a well.

What shocked me? That 3rd labours could be twice as long and worse than your first.

I was induced with DS because my waters had gone and I was a little at

1. being told to put the G&A air down when they delivered my DS by ventouse as I wasn't focusing very well on pushing and he really needed to be got out.
2. the sensation of him being pulled (and pushed a little bit by me I like to think) out.
3. how I managed to poo the next day without my insides falling out and my stiches coming out!
4. how even though I know that felt pretty awful at the time I really can't remember the pain and how I would go through it all again tomorrow.

I am not sure you should have asked this question really - ignorance can sometimes be bliss!

How much blood there was, and how far it reached (the ceiling!)

Being sick for 24 hours before the birth - I didn't pick that one up in any of the books i read, or at the ante natal classes.