What do you think of the pain of labour after giving birth?

[WhatIsPink]

Ive just had my third child, labour was wild and as anyone who’s been through it knows the pain. I was lucky to be fast and furious with very short active labour but quite a few stitches.

Every time I was surprised that I was doing it again, especially when I am in active labour , as it was not traumatised enough enough, however I seem to forget what happened last time and only see that beautiful child.

Just an after delivery though and what’s on your mind after all that painful delivery?

I am so so sorry that you went through this.. no words can make it better but I hear you..

I found both my labours easy- 3 hrs and 1 hr 40. However I tore on dc1 and had to have internal and external stitches. I screamed through every stitch as I could feel them. The midwifes (I had 2 plus 2 students) kept telling me I'd done the hard part. No I hadn't that was pain free in comparison.

My first words after dc2 was born 'I don't have to have stitched do I??' Thankfully I didn't.

Didn’t want to find out. So had two electives!

I sometimes read these threads out of some sort of morbid curiosity (childfree by choice) - many of these stories tell of horrific pain yet I have also read threads started by woman feeling nervous about impending childbirth only to get responses of "your body knows what to do", "there are so many options to deal with pain", "there is no need to suffer pain" etc etc, very different responses to here. Do people still refrain from telling pregnant women the 'real story' regarding labour?

my first labour was almost more than i could stand. firstly an enema was still the order of the day so that was a very traumatic start. then they broke my waters plus put me on a drip to kick start things the contractions kicked in so quickly i passed out. the pain from my periods was bad enough to make me pass out but though i still passed out the pain was beyond belief. this was on the Saturday.
in the end i was given pethidine which eventually made me fall asleep. i had not eaten since Friday so that did not help.
by Sunday the contractions were still strong but i was still only 5cm dilated so they gave me an epidural but that only took on the left side of my body which gave a very odd sensation.
by teatime they were considering a c section but in the end my daughter was born but ripped me quite a lot of stitches. the afterbirth was very painful as well so to be honest an only child would be my choice.
However, a drunken anniversary saw me expecting another child. she was born when i was 7 months gone. her birth was very quick i did not have time to register pain i did not tear but she was born very quick and spent time in SCBU. again i found the afterbirth the most painful.
as i had lost many through miscarriage before and had a premature my late husband had the snip as i did not want to risk anymore

I've had 4 children and I chose a C-section with my fourth,they wanted to induce me at 39 weeks for medical reasons and all of a sudden the memories of my induction with my second child came flooding back and I had a panic attack they suggested a C-section because I was in such a state, my 2 natural labours though were smooth sailing and were fine I would be fine doing that but induction of labour is a pain that is on another level.

My obstetrician: so you probably want to consider an epidural- first child at 35 etc.

Me: ha ha- no you don’t understand. I run marathons. I’ll be totally fine. I’m not a mere mortal.

5 days later…….

Fuuuuuuuck! Get the anaesthetist! I’m dying!

The only thing that was close to as painful was when I herniated a disc and had terrible sciatica as a result.

when I had dd I got the epidural much earlier and all was good. If I hadn’t lived in a country with guaranteed epidurals I’d have had a c section.

Possibly. When women post those questions, they're usually already pregnant and just a few months or weeks away from giving birth. It probably is better to not go into it completely terrified already.

There are options for pain relief too. I haven't personally had an epidural, but those I know who have, loved it and had almost painless experiences.

Also, (for many, not all) you do kind of forget how bad the pain is afterwards. Otherwise, women wouldn't ever go for a second/third/fourth child. Most consider labour more than worth it to have gotten their child too.

You had no pain after your c sections? I was given a morphine drip, as they’d cut me hip bone to hip bone due to some complications, I couldn’t take the morphine, I hated it, felt like a zombie, but the pain was so bad I had to walk on tip toes as when I put my heel down, no matter how gently, the shock waves of the impact cased the pain to reverberate through my body.

So they gave me pessaries instead, but as they were wearing off, the pain came back, till the next one, I’m shocked you’d no pain. They cut something like 9 layers.

I think it’s tricky as for me at least it was really positive. So although painful, it was a manageable pain that felt natural and productive. I definitely had a moment with my second where I remembered and thought ‘f**k why did I do this again!’ thinking I couldn’t do it, but that didn’t last for long.
you have so many hormones helping you along so it’s not just straightforward pain.
I am now pregnant with number 3. The birth doesn’t scare or worry me, it’s more the postpartum/recovery that I remember just feeling a bit broken.
it’s such a different experience for everyone so I think you’ll never get one viewpoint on it.

It's a necessary evil, but by god, it is evil. I hated very moment, but luckily for me, the really intense phases of each labour lasted a max of 1.5 hours each time. Thankfully I only had to have an episiotomy once, but they did it without anaesthetic, so...

All human beings forget pain. Our brains dont hold on to it. You remember feeling it, but not the actual pain.

Women don’t have to do it painfully - there are epidurals which are the best thing ever invented.

Gosh, you poor thing! That sounds terrifying. Was this an emergency c section, though? As those are a very different situation.

I had a spinal anaesthetic. No pain at all, either time. Babies born in about 15 mins, whole thing took under an hour. We had cool playlists, DH held my hand, it was just really nice.

Recovery was also fine. I took OTC painkillers for a couple of days, and didn’t do very much. I didn’t need the painkillers after a few (I think three?) days. And this isn’t me being a brave soldier, my pain threshold is notoriously low, which is why I opted for caesarean sections in the first place. The very idea of a vaginal birth terrified me.

I didn’t know that that level of pain was possible, and I never forgot. Second child was a planned c section and recovery was virtually pain-free.

I’ve had two completely drug free births, my contractions were hard, more uncomfortable than painful, and aside from the weird panic at transition, and the really intense cramping pain of effacing and dilating in my first labour, none of it was awful. I’ve broken two toes and they hurt more than giving birth.

I have never forgotten it , it was horrendous. Forceps , episiotomy , failed epidural. It was MANY years ago (over 30) so didn’t repeat it.

First baby back to back OP, contractions were horrendous. Secodn baby again contractions were the worst and same with the third. My children have all been small babies not weighing more than 5lb 5oz at birth so the actual pushing part l barely register. It's the contractions, they take you to a, completely different plane.

I'm really sorry this all happened to you.

Probably words on the internet won't help much but having been through a very similar experience (3 day labour, forceps, heammhorage, infection, weeks in hospital, by the time I got back my elder toddler didn't recognize me any more) - I'm really sad you see these things as failures. I think of them for myself as being like an epic battle I survived! My son and I talk about it a lot between ourselves and he thinks it's cool I went through so much to bring him into the world. I tell him he's worth it and Id do it again tomorrow. It's become quite a nice story.

I hope one day maybe you can reframe your memories this way. You survived!

After the first I thought ‘That was fine, I’d do that even.’ Even with a 3b tear 🤨😆 After my second was born I knew I was done immediately. Not sure why as her birth wasn’t any worse than my son’s.

My labour itself wasn't bad until the final 10 minutes and even then was ok. The pain for the next 2-3 days when your body suddenly starts contracting back the uterus and changing everything back to where it was... wow. I could barely pump or breastfeed as every time I did my stomach cramps were agony.

1st baby - horrible experience (forceps delivery)
2nd baby - not too bad, a few stitches
3rd baby - I almost enjoyed myself because I knew exactly what I was doing and just wanted to be left alone to get on with it - I also had an excellent midwife

edited to add: however I do remember sitting on the edge of the bed at the beginning of my 3rd labour, knowing only too well the night that lay ahead of me and thinking, why on earth did I think it was a good idea to do this again??

Good god this was horrendous to read. How unfair that your experience was so, so awful.

Hope you are in a better place now and know you failed at nothing, you sound like an absolute rockstar, birth is a dangerous business and we are all bloody lucky to be here.

2 babies 2 vaginal deliveries. Labours were 7 hours and 3 hrs used breathing and gas and air. It was fine, neither the hardest or the most painful thing I have ever experienced. Realise I was lucky, would never diminish another womens experience was v. glad I didn't need an epidural or c- section either time.

Oh wow, reading this reminded me of the afterpains with DC2. How could I even forget?! They were honestly worse than contractions! I think partly because they’re a means to an end, whereas I have my lovely new baby now so why am I still in pain!

Had my first with IV fentanyl, I remember complaining to the nurse about the pain, but don't actually remember the pain now. My second came so quickly (practically fell out!) there was no time to administer any kind of pain relief, and I don't remember it either.

My mum did it three times, and she always said she didn't remember the pain either.