Things you only learned about pregnancy and birth once you were committed

[BestZebbie]

Inspired by the thread about giving women more information about natural birth.... What happened to you/ your friends during pregnancy and birth that came as a total surprise?
I'll start with:
Temporary deafness in late pregnancy (probably fluid related, like swollen ankles)
Arthritis post-pregnancy, apparently triggered by it
Pains when the placenta implanted (meaning that I thought it was all going wrong)

Could smell the litter tray as soon as I walked in the door - even when fresh!!

Got a hairy tummy. (Soon fixed itself)

The gas rendered me totally incapable of making any resonable judgements. If I'd know this before I would have tried harder to do without it.

I could inadvertently shoot milk across the room.

I could leak cupfuls of milk during the night meaning the duvet needed washing almost daily.

People like to treat other people's newborn like a fucking toy!

That my name is "mum" and that I need to be addressed in the third person and with simple words. Midwives, GP, nursery... "And how is mum feeling today?" Fuck off.

After pains - worse than labor for me.

Oh, the amount of STUFF that comes out afterwards. For fucking ages.

And the first period. Ohhhhhh that was a whole new level of awful.

3 months post partum, intending to nurse for a few years so not expecting a period any time soon and at the airport waiting to come back to the UK to introduce ds to my family, waiting in the check in line, stressed to fuck about travelling with a tiny vulnerable person at the height of flu season with crippling anxiety and OCD and BAM!!!! Niagra Falls hits the panty region all at once and I literally have blood clots pouring down my legs. And they continue for three weeks. Every month for about 9 months. Lessening each month but still, thanks for the heads up on that one.

After your waters break they can keep trickling out.
Pushing takes ages, especially with the first. I thought it took a few mins. Maybe 3 pushes.
Every birth is different.
You really, really won't care whose hand is in your vagina and how many people are watching when you are close to delivery.
You may find focus and strength you never knew you had.

There's no award for going medication free...you take those drugs and guess what the prize at the end is still the same!! 👶🏼

All the stuff that comes out for weeks afterwards!

That the midwives are there to help you, whether that's checking the baby or putting your hair in a clip. And you don't have to do what they say. This all stops when you're on the maternity ward, so make the most of it.

That you might poo more than once. I think I pooed almost every push with DS2.

Bruised nether regions. How did I not realise that it would be bruised?!

Ah yes, lochia. I didn't find out until I was pregnant. I also reminder my SIL telling me about it in surprised/shocked tones when she was pregnant. I'd had two children by then.

The bleeding. The fact that you won't walk for a while without your pelvis seizing up. Spending weeks peeing when you don't want to and wondering if your stitches are healing.

The anxiety, crying, dread. The onset of pnd while everyone in a professional role ignores it. Wish somebody had warned me about that.

Stretch marks can appear after the baby is out.

Fucking PGP. FUCKING PGP. honest to god the most miserable nine months I have ever had. Morning sickness that was actually all day that last right up to 35 weeks and do I mention FUCKING PGP? The most God almighty awful, bone grinding, joint separating pain and YY to the PP that said you are just supposed to get on with it b

Health professionals describing PGP as slight discomfort. Fuck. Off.
Fuck.
Off.

The sheer exhaustion of being pregnant.

The agony of labour and how wpidurals can fail three fucking times and you feel like you are dying and no one is helping you.

That you can go from three cm to fully dilated in 40 minutes with your first baby and no one believes you when you say you need to push.

That a propess to start induction can make internal examinations so painful that you can't tolerate them.

That labour can turn you into someone you don't recognise and you can struggle with the shame of that for weeks afterwards

That even despite the misery that pregnancy and labour was for you, give it a month or so and you are willing to do it all over again because the baby is genuinely the best thing you have ever done and you can lose hours just sitting and holding and staring at him in absolute awe.

That the 'baby blues' are not as cute and cuddly as they sound. I was totally unprepared, thought it was just when people get a bit weepy at sad films and things but nope. A couple of days after my DD was born, I was suddenly struck by the most crippling anxiety and a feeling of absolute dread, like a premonition that something awful was going to happen to her in the night. Every evening I would be in floods of tears, completely inconsolable because I was scared to go to sleep and not be able to watch her to check her breathing. By morning I would be so relieved that we'd made it through the night, then I'd spend all day getting gradually more and more anxious. And rinse and repeat. Lasted for about a week and then went away as suddenly as it came. I should say, this was definitely baby blues and not proper PND/PNA. I don't have experience of those.

That as gorgeous as the end result is, the little monsters can tear their way out Aliens style.

This is even worse when your midwife looked like Sigourney Weaver and you're spacing on gas and air.

SPD is a pain-filled nightmare.

That the pain of mastitis will remove any shred of humanity you had regained since the birth while hunting for something, anything, that will relieve the pain in your chest.

The bleeding. So much blood.

That in the delivery room, anyone and everyone is fair game for the temper you didn't know you had until that moment

I was completely unprepared the first time around for how much blood there would be, for days afterward, after childbirth. Requiring lots of pairs of underpants and packets and packets and packets of pads.

The night sweats after birth, I used to wake up dripping wet!

Wind

Night cramps

Piles

They pee in the womb.
20 week scan with my first -
"I'm just checking his bladder, oh it's just emptied so everything is working well then."
I sat for several minutes realising I had a baby floating around in a bag of his own wee! I had to make myself stop thinking about it.

Sometimes, labour just does not happen properly. It didn't for me. No amount of prep, birth plans and positive thinking changed it. I've had two children and it was forceps and EMCS. My cervix failed to dilate properly both times. Artificial hormones eventually worked the first time but not the second. Oh well.
Not that it really matters in the long term. I have two children. They're fine.

Varicose veins in and around the Vagina.

That I am not some supercool Wonder Woman but a deeply feeble wimp with the pain threshold of a mouse who is not actually capable of getting a baby out of me without the aid of doctors with knives and implements. This was quite annoying because after breezing through each symptom-free pregnancy I thought I had this reproduction lark sorted.

But nothing compares to my DGM who, on establishing her first pregnancy went to the doctor and asked exactly how the baby was going to emerge. He laughed and said "the same way it got in there" and she was utterly shocked. My DGGM was a bit peculiar so I can well believe that the subject had never emerged.

That pregnancy can give you rhinitis. I sneezed constantly for months.

Haven't given birth yet but I'll come back and update in five weeks or so when everything something has taken me by surprise.

That you can grow actual fur during pregnancy
That morning sickness can in fact be nine months of vomiting a dozen times a day
The sickening pelvic pain
That the sickening pelvic pain doesn't go away after birth
That spinals don't always work

Breastfeeding can be excruciatingly painful!

Oh and cluster feeding. I had no idea that was a thing.
I have learned so much being pregnant and having my first. One thing that's really annoyed me is that you're just not told about stuff like hyperemesis or spd, but when you actually talk to people you realise it's not uncommon - it's just that it's not publicised and the medical profession has ( sorry to say) a very dismissive 'you're pregnant what do you expect?' Attitude.

That being stitched up afterwards (episiotomy) would be so painful. I got through more g&a during stitches than I did during the rest of my labour.

The birthing the placenta actually felt really nice (for me, I know it doesn't fit everyone!). It's hard to describe but it was warm and just 'nice'.