Be honest and tell me how painful it will really be giving birth??

[Chelle1986]

You see I've been really lucky in life and have never been hospitalised or broke a bone of anything that has caused me loads of pain - touch wood. And I'm really worried that because of this I won't be able to cope with labour....am i being stupid? Am 6 months currently.xxx

i have had earache that hurt more than childbirth-but i think thats because labour was lots of shorter bursts that you get to recover from and a baby at the end that takes your mind of it rather than 3 days of total agony that made me feel like my head was bursting.

I chipped a bone in my ankle - God that was sore!!!

As folk have said giving birth bloody hurts! My experience is that just as you think you've reached as far as you can, you have to go a wee bit further. With DD2 the midwives were telling me that they knew I was tired and that baby was tired but I had to push REALLY hard next time. I told them that I wasn't bloody tired it just bloody hurt!

For me it was a different sort of pain than the chipped ankle pain. It is a productive pain, it takes over your whole body and helps you to give birth. For me it was over relatively quickly, as soon as placenta was delivered I was pretty much back to normal (apart from the after pains when breastfeeding......which no-one tells you about either!)

Don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but the worst bit for both my births was the buring sensation when baby's head is coming out - its the only bit I can remember clearly. Oh that stings!

showofhands i am sorry you went through the wringer at your child's birth. i wish you a good recovery.

I think the pain of stubbing your toe is worse but then that subsides in a couple of minutes whilst labour can take hours.

No-one can tell you how painful your labour is going to be, as the posts here show everyones labour and their reaction and tolerance to pain is different the only thing you can do is make sure you are informed about what is going to happen and try and decide how you want to deal with it whether that be epidural or hypnobirthing (and you can do both of course!)

I had never felt real pain before either. I didn't find labour that bad and was very lucky. My labour was just under 5 hours and I only had gas and air. Maybe you'll be lucky!

SoH, I'm really sorry you went through that. It sounds horrifying.

I will concur with you and several others that sometimes people do not cope. In fact I don't feel as though I coped with my second...survived it, yes, but it really did freak me out especially as I had had an epidural early with ds1 and felt it was very easy.
Nothing prepared me for the experience of a birth without pain relief.

People kept saying 'well done!' but I just felt sick and shaken. I felt like I had been in a bad road accident or something (no experience of that but could imagine)

Still not got up the courage to do it again, and not certain I will.

and the fact I didn't have pain relief was mainly due to being at home when labour started and it being very quick. I was begging to be taken somewhere and given an epidural but it was too late to go anywhere.

I really didn't know what to do with that level of pain, it was awful.

plus it was sheer luck mine was only OP...had he been unable to get out I'd have ended up being taken to hospital VERY fast (45 min journey) or I'd have died...simple as that really.

Having a PPH afterwards was just the icing on the cake.

Birth is not something anyone can properly plan, iMO. You get what you're given...sometimes it goes OK, sometimes, it's shite. If you are aware of this then you will be better prepared, OP.

SoH - exactly. I told my 'horror story' because I wished someone had told me the truth before I had my first, not to try to scare the op, that's sick. I feel at least if someone had told me then I wouldn't have been so scarred mentally for months/years afterwards.

Yes I had a second, but I'd been promised a ECS that's the only reason I agreed to a second child (which I desperately wanted).

My second birth was much, much better because I had the epidural from the start and knew what to expect.

I'm sorry but bullshit, you get a group of women together and they love nothing better than scarring the living daylights out of some poor girl who's yet to have a baby or better still pregnant.
That's the downside, every now and then some glimmer of information that might be useful and save somebody else going through the same might come out but generally it's unhelpful at best and damn right inaccurate and frightening at worst.

Well the way I look at it is that somebody asked for complete honesty. And who are you to say that it's unhelpful or inaccurate? I do not enjoy scaring other people, especially pregnant women. I want nothing more than to empower women to feel in control and prepared and positive about impending labour. To hope for the absolute best but prepare for the eventualities and theoretical possibilities. Don't you dare reduce my experiences to contrived and scary tales that I whip out in competition.

But it's nice to know that when I mention something that has ruined whole parts of the last 3 years, my self esteem, my sex life, my plans and my mental health I am doing it for some idle and malicious reasons of my own.

I hated giving birth, I really did, but the pain wasn't the worst part, it really did hurt, but the hardest part for me was the exhaustion, and not knowing when it will end. That's meant to make you feel better though, not worse. You get through it. Thinking about it is going to make it worse.

Think about when you have injections, I hate injections, but you know they are coming. Stubbing your toe is far more painful than an injection but you aren't expecting it, so you don't worry about it.

I've been getting really bad cramp in this pregnancy and a few times I have though, god, this is worse than labour, though I'm not sure it is

Nobody can reduce your experiences to anything but that's what they are your experiences not likely to happen to anyone else so quite honestly if they were/are that bad are they helpful to a woman about to give birth, personally I think not.
If you needed a heart transplant would you want to hear about the 30 that died or the 3 that were successful and event free ?
Women are their own worse enemy at time.

You are refusing to listen. I only wanted to hear the positive stories when pregnant. I did not have a positive labour and delivery. My denial and expectations contributed to the ptsd I struggle with now.

I have repeatedly said- in fact my first post on here states- that you cannot tell anybody what labour will be like with them as everybody experiences it differently. You can present the broad spectrum though so that women are going into something knowledgable. And if I needed any kind of procedure I'd want facts, not comfort.

By mamatomany Fri 04-Jun-10 17:04:50
I'm sorry but bullshit, you get a group of women together and they love nothing better than scarring the living daylights out of some poor girl who's yet to have a baby or better still pregnant.

_

Mamatomany, you are totally generalising.

I don't know ANY women who actively attempt to put the fear into other pregnant women.

That would be an awful thing to do and SoH is well intelligent enough to recognise if she were using some kind of transference in order to make herself feel better, at the expense of the OP.

You might be talking about the kind of people you hang out with, but my friends are actually a really nice bunch and wouldn't do what you are suggesting and that includes SoH...

I have had two baby's dc1 24hours back to back no break in cc from the start to finish. They were very painful yes but it was a good pain, I felt so many emotions I loved giving birth. Many people told me horror stories before I gave birth and built it up and built it up but IMO it was not that bad. Pushing stage actually quite enjoyable it felt good to be able to do something and push through the pain.

DD I had Back ache for a few days which was labor but only 12 hours of established labor, still had only back cc but there was a break this time in the cc. I felt very calm and relaxed on both my births and they were great.

I echo others when my MIL came round while I was in labor I tensed and got stressed and the pain more than doubled but when she went I forced myself to relax and the pain got more manageable. I found it takes you to the point where you are thinking god I can't take any more and then you are pushing. Try not to worry it cant be that bad most women have more than one child.

I have had two DCs and suspected appendix infection 16 weeks after DS. While I rated that pain as being a 5 or 6 with labour a ten, I'd still rather go through labour again than that. With labour you know why you're in pain and to some degree what's going on. All the minor niggles you have (work, family etc0 have been planned for, with other pain you have a load of worry and fear too.

It does hurt enough for you to say at the time that you will never do it again, but for me that was just the last bit as the baby's head was crowning. It doesn't hurt enough that you won't do it again, you will.

The best advice that I got was "to use gas & air, it won't stop the pain but it will knock the edge off it enough for you to cope. That way you'll be in and out in no time".

For me the most important thing wasn't stopping the pain but getting the baby out as fast as I could.

Read up on the pain relief options that your hospital offers and any potential side affects.

I haven't read all the thread so sorry if I'm repeating but many women report less pain if they give birth at home or in water or both. Are these options available to you?

I have had 4 normal/natural deliveries using g&a from 7cm - start of pushing, then binned it as for me it doesn't do anything, only acts as a distraction but distracts me too much faffing with the thing once you need to concentrate iyswim?

I always assumed I had a very low pain threshold as when I was younger I would be in floods of tears at mother removing splinters from me.

I might also add that I think each labour for each woman is different.

I actually enjoyed giving birth to DS1.

I told the MW and DH I was 'going to die, look after the kids for me. Tell my mother I love her' delivering DS2.

DS3 I cried a lot like a wounded buffalo.

DD1 I asked DH to 'just bloody shoot me now'

Each time was not exactly the same as the previous time. Similar, the way it built up etc but once it kicked off they all felt quite different for me.

I find it hard to comprehend the sort of labour that goes on and on.

I have very little stamina! My first was about 8 hours, my second 3 and a half - but thatw as solid contractions, 5 mins then 2 mins apart the whole time.

I cannot imagine sustaining that level of fear, pain and panic for longer than a few hours. See, I still feel like I have cheated! I knew I'd find a way to feel inadequate, eventually.!

I have no stamina either, but there aren't really any other options

mama I wish that someone had told me just how painful it was. I would have notched up my level of preparation. I went into it NCT'd, internetted, but I also had people telling me that 'they survived, you forget, people do it all the time, it is do-able'.

The fact that I found myself so shocked and completely 'unable' to 'do it' mentally traumatised me as I was labouring, and meant I suffered with PTSD and flashbacks.

The level of preperation the second time was bordering obsessive, but I got what I wanted and had a good experience. This level of preparation extended to keeping the mw's the hell away from me btw, so it was fairly HIGH level preparation.

and yes mama if I was having heart surgery I WOULD want to know about the 30 that died, to help me prepare my will, family, service, aftercare and days in the run-up!

Tbh it was an intensity and totality of pain like nothing I've ever experienced.

It was horrible but there was a point to it so it was something I HAD to get through to have my child emerge.

Dd was an unsuccessful epi after an OP delivery, the other three pretty much unmedicated, the last two at home. And for me, that was what worked. What works for you could be utterly different. Birth is probably the most subjective experience you could have.

I think the only advice I can give is to have an open mind. It's an experience like no other you will ever have. Read up as much as you can on how your body works during labour - that helped me immensely to know the physiology. And as many people have already said, be prepared for the fact it sometimes doesn't go to plan.

Good luck!