What surprised you most about pregnancy/ labour??

[LittleMidge]

I remember it all starting with my DS and I went to the bathroom and out came the whole plug, swiftly follwed by my waters going, I wasn't yet in labour! I just remember thinking 'wow for once it is exactly how they tell you about it in the books and just like the films!'

Was also very surprised by the amount of water in my 'waters!'

I was surprised by a few things

• hated being pregnant (thought I would love it)
• loved labour (obviously thought I would hate it)
• waters didn't go until the contraction before DD1 was born- I had assumed they always went in early labour or before labour began (too much tv!)

With DC1, just how much hard work it was to push a head around a bend. With DC2, how it so wasn't that much hard work to push a head around a bend.

• the shapes your baby can distort your bump into
• how active the baby was at the first scan
• that you can feel your baby hiccuping!
• how fat it is possible for your ankles to get
• how loud the 'pop' is if your waters break with a pop

Just how hard it is to put your shoes on from about 26 weeks. How painful kicks can be when the baby has been kicking you in the same spot for several days and they feel like an angry mule.
How amazed I was that my body had made a completely perfect human being inside me in the space of 9 months without any conscious effort or skill on my part.
How the end of pregnancy was so utterly uncomfortable that I would have given my right arm to go into labour anytime after 37 weeks, even the second time when I knew how much it was going to hurt! And once I'd had the baby and no sleep for a week, I would willingly have gone back to being pregnant as sleeping whilst bloody uncomfortable was better than not sleeping at all.
How I could go from feeling not sick at all and scoffing an apple pie (mini one) to projectile vomiting said pie all over dh about 3 seconds after I swallowed it during labour.
Also the complete loss of my wonderful sense of humour around 2cms which returned in full around 10 minutes after I got the epidural.