Rant...women who love to tell you all about their birth horror stories :(

[Cherryblossom200]

Hello everyone,

Thought I would have a little Sunday evening rant something has been bothering me recently! I'm nearly 33 weeks pregnant with my first child and obviously starting to become anxious about the birth. I know it will be painful, but friends/women I've met in antenatal just LOVE to tell me about their birth horror stories. I'm now expecting hell on earth, I haven't come across one woman who has had a normal birth

I almost feel that some of the women get some kind of 'weird' enjoyment from telling their stories! I think they tend to forget that they are scaring the living daylights out of me!

Anyway rant over! Hope you all have a lovely Sunday evening xx

OP, I could tell you my birth stories and, depending on how you choose to listen to them, you might hear a horror story or a "normal" birth story.

I found both my labours amazing and empowering. I gave birth vaginally both times. But I suspect that if you focus on the interventions, damage and timescales you may see them as horror stories. Personally, they didn't feel like horror stories. I would always check what information a woman wanted before giving her details though.

Don't demonise those that do. Or have. Most like me fwiw don't do it to be nasty. I certainly wasn't. It took over a year for me to get over it. I truly at the time thought I was giving good useful advice, if situation specific. Certainly some of the nuance stuff I wish I'd known - like how hospitals work as that had direct implications for my own care.

Thing is you cannot plan for this. It's very individual. My experience will never be repeated. It can't. And some things can only be really understood once you experience them too. And that's for all, good or bad.

I did it again 18mths later. And boy had I learnt!

I was the opposite. I wish someone had told me the reality of childbirth- not the horror, just the reality. I was woefully unprepared, a tad naive and wish I had known more (and I don't mean what you get from books and OBEM).
But having said that, every birth is different and you just don't know if it will be a bearable pleasure or a lot harder. I guess now you know the worst, the chances are your experience may be a lot better and probably will be because you are better prepared.
For every horror story, I know a lot of people who had great births.

Before I gave birth I got told nothing but good stories! That only people with problems end up with c secs ect.. So my traumatic birth came as a real shock to me. I wouldn't put my story out there if people didn't ask but the hardest bit about my birth was that it came as a bit of a shock and in a way I wish I knew!

Wish you all the best of luck for your birth xxx

Boomtown, I don't think I am demonising my friends for telling me. I just feel there is a time and place for those stories NOT when I'm due to give birth myself. You felt the need to tell people about your experience because it helped you and that's great. But I personally don't feel it is helping me in the slightest other then adding to my anxiety. If you need to tell your birth stories that went horribly wrong then chose the right person to talk to it about. I don't think a lot of the time 2nd/3rd timers really the impact they can have.

I tell mine, but I'm careful how I do it. It was medicalised but despite that it was still a positive experience, painful but well managed pain, and I'm always careful to emphasise that. I would hate to worry someone, but equally I think it can help alleviate fear.

' I wish someone had told me the reality of childbirth- not the horror, just the reality.'

YY this. This is what I try and give my friends! And about recovery/realities of bf if they want to.

I refused to listen to any birth stories while I was pregnant, good or bad I didn't want to hear it!
This did backfire when I got my induction date and freaked out a little and spent all night watching OBEM! But my overwhelming thought throughout my labour was "this is nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be!"
For the record, I had a 6 hour twin labour, so frankly I got off easy!

I had a positive birth experience. It is so important to try to relax and not tense up.

It is cathartic for women to discuss their birth experiences. As others have said many women also feel 'why did no one tell me it was like this?' And feel the need to share.

Don't judge too harshly OP, you may find you do exactly the same once you've had your baby. (And never say never !)

However you are completely within your rights to ask people to stop if they are distressing you.

I had heard so many horror stories that when I'd gave birth I thought "is that it" I'd not heard one good story I now feel kinda robbed of all the screaming and drugs and days of contractions!

They might be trying to help you.

I think if I hadn't been so trusting of my body and the nhs I wouldn't have been as traumatised but I know that raising someone's anxiety about birth puts them in a bad position for having a good go at labour.

On the positive side: the tens machine is a great distraction from pain, got to 10cm dilated with just that and a couple of paracetamol and it worked fantastically well for me. I found it was good pain relief afterwards as well.

Good luck

Cherry and that's your ability to feel that way. Thats fair. You see every truth has two sides. And when you give birth theres about 15 sides as there's going to be around 15 people in your room. And that's just you and staff!

Define horror story though? If somebody says 'I had an emcs after the baby got stuck', is that a horror story or a statement of fact. You have to remember that what sounds like horror to you is just the story of somebody else's big event. The onus is on you a little bit to speak up if you don't want to hear it.

I did what you did and refused to hear the bad stuff because it frightened me and I was planning a home water birth and it was going to be hunky dory. I lapped up the Ina May stuff and read every positive birth thread going. And when I ended up with necessary intervention, I felt robbed and guilty and shocked and traumatised and joined the long queue of women who felt that they wished they'd known, wished they'd listened. Because forceps and ventouse and emcs and epidurals etc aren't 'horrors', they're just things that can happen due to chance. Knowing about them actually empowers you to feel positive about the choices within those interventions and to feel prepared for how and why they're used. Because second time round when I ended up with another emcs, it was the most positive experience on earth. I think we need to get rid of the dichotomy of intervention free is good, instrumental/elcs/emcs is bad.

You are of course not unreasonable. I was you once upon a time. I didn't need to hear about blood and gore and tales of doom. But in amongst it all, I also refused to hear what people were trying to tell me. I think as women we need to listen more and hear more about how you might feel when things are done to our bodies. It's a powerful thing giving birth and you feel vulnerable. Sharing it afterwards often comes from a desire to help a woman avoid feeling traumatised. Please find a way to gently say you aren't ready to hear it or to ask questions like 'what would have helped' or 'did you do things differently next time'. Chances are most women will be actually trying to help.

Hang on a minute here. I think quite a few of you are being a bit unfair and not really listening to what I am saying. I DO realise things can go wrong in birth. I'm not stupid. I have spoken to close friends about their e experiences and for me that was enough. However at 33 weeks pregnant I'm finding more and more women are telling me about their birth stories most of which were quite frankly brutal. I keep saying this, I understand it is cathartic to talk about your experiences of birth especially if they were traumatic however choose your audience WISELY!! most first timers even the chilled ones are going to be anxious! So ASK first if before blurting out the gory experiences. I'm to polite to say sorry I don't want to hear that.

My definition of horror stories are these recent examples,

Started as natural birth and body got stuck, so had an emergency c-section to pull the baby back through and out. This is quite literally my worst nightmare as I'm
petrified the baby will get stuck as I'm petite.

Another example, woman nearly died after a c-section. She went into huge description about how she felt and what went wrong. They tried to administer an epidural loads of times and kept hitting a nerve.

Woman had an induction, baby nearly died 3 times during the process.

The list goes on. And on and on and on.

One thing I have learnt from this process is, whatever type of birth I end up with whether it is straight forward or not. I will only talk about it to women who have already had their baby, and to those who are pregnant I will ask them first if they are happy for me to share my story with them. I think it's just polite to ask first tbh especially if it wasn't straight forward. I would hate to make someone feel anxious before their first experience of birth because it acted as some kind of therapy for my own good. I think the thing here is that everyone is different with the way they approach the subject of birth. Some people want to hear about the gore, some people don't. So just don't assume everyone is the same. Because we are not.

It's all about 'presentation' though, isn't it?

"Woman had an induction, baby nearly died 3 times during the process"
That could be 'rebranded' as "I had an induction, baby nearly died in the process but thanks to the wonderful care I had we were both fine" (assuming they were).

I don't think you have to 'allow' your friends/acquaintances to scare you silly because it might be therapeutic for them - I agree there's a time and a place for birth stories.

I also hope that nobody took my earlier 'don't be scared' as suggesting that being all chilled and relaxed will guarantee a nice and easy labour, or having a bad experience is somehow the woman's 'fault' for not being relaxed enough - that was not at all what I was trying to imply.

But - women have been giving birth since the beginning of time. There is no doubt that we (Western society) have lost confidence in the process of labour and delivery which is a great shame.

Be informed.
Feel confident to ask questions and to say 'no' to things you don't want.
Above all IMO, keep an open mind about what might happen.
And, even more important, don't feel obliged to give birth any particular way: giving birth is a small part of being a parent. IMO there is not point to get too hung up about your 'performance'. Drugs or not drugs, or drugs AND whale music, or home birth while humming 'immmmmm', or crash CS, or hospital birth with epidural and synto or anything in between - they can all turn in to positive experiences if you feel you've been part of the decision making process and if you feel trust in those who look after you.

x-post.

Good idea about asking first before you share

And sorry for the excessive bolding in my previous post - not sure what happened there…

Oh I'm sorry cherry.

If it's any reassurance neither of my births, vaginal and then elcs were life threatening and neither baby got stuck. In my opinion/ experience the interventions I received were very good. My episiotomy healed and no problems at all 3 months later having sex, in fact better! Baby 1 had a ventouse mark that faded in minutes.

My c section scar is disappearing in front of my eyes and my consultant was really nice..

Hope that counters some of the horror.

In the months leading up to my labour, every time I saw mil she launched, unprompted, into a story about one of her awful labours. I'd always get stuck alone with her and she'd talk non-stop without letting me get a word in - that pissed me off more actually. It wasn't until afterwards I thought she probably should have kept her birth horror stories to herself. I know how much she exaggerates so let a lot of it go over my head.

I did tell people about mine in the first week or so, but only people who asked me (and none of them were pregnant).

I've always felt this weird also Op.

I've always distanced myself from birth story sharers....It puts me off my coffee and cake.