Pregnancy's Best Kept Secrets

foreversomeday

Ooh I was looking forward to posting here... glad it's come back up the board.

Where do I start hehehe

A few hours after giving birth, I was surprised to find that I couldn't walk, I nearly fainted when I tried to have a shower, my lips were cracked and bleeding (where I had been biting them), my throat was sore, my ears were ringing and I'd dug my fingers into my palms so hard I'd broken the skin.

I didn't expect to take nearly a week to feel able to do the most basic of tasks, then again my labour was 48 hours with no sleep!

I didn't anticipate the fact that as my stitches were healing, they would go from being painful to itching like crazy and really really not wanting to scratch but at the same time wishing I could!

On the other hand...

Even though I planned a home birth and ended up transferring to hospital, I still went on to use their birth pool and have a natural birth without intervention using only gas and air. The midwives were wonderful and in the end I was glad of the sturdy hospital pool (I nearly kicked a hole in the side :rotfl:) as my inflatable one probably wouldn't have coped!

One of the things that scared me about hospital was the possibility of having an episiotomy but by the end I was actually asking for one as I was so tired. I didn't have one but I wouldn't have minded at the time so that is less scary for another time.

One thing which really helped was knowing how labour worked. It helped knowing that when I got to 4cm things would start moving along more quickly as I was having a very long latent stage. It also helped to know the signs of transition as I knew I was very close to the end by that point.

SpoonyOh

I reckon I coped really well with having my little chap, the only bugbears were condescending midwives who were childless (one of them told me to squat in a position that made me tear!), and women who had already had kids giving me scare stories about the delivery. Some people should know better.
Afterwards, it was being told I was stupid to breastfeed when bottle-feeding was 'better', and the family having a whinge at me because I had a planned delivery at home and wouldn't have any visitors until the day after.

naki

I've been reading MSE forums for a while but this thread finally got my lazy bum in gear to register for it. I gave birth to my baby girl 6 days ago and this thread has kept me laughing and vaguely sane throughout the last couple of nights!

I had a spontaenous labour- I was 6-7cm dialated on admission to the hospital and they decided to break my waters to get things going even faster (like I needed it!). Talk about OUCH! It stepped up a gear (or a thousand gears) and I dialated fully in about an hour. I only had gas and air. Apparently I dislocated my husband's wrist, almost kicked the midwife in the face, almost fell off the bed and screamed so loudly my Dad had to shut all the doors in the corridoor outside.

After 1 hour 30 of pushing (which felt like a thousand years), they started talking about cutting me. My mind said NO WAY and got her head out in one push- and I didn't tear anyway! After she was born, they ran me a bath. No-one told me it would look like someone was murdered in the bathroom- even though I knew I'd bleed, I was still out of it and it shocked me.

I thought because I didn't tear, things would be alright downstairs. No-one told me peeing would feel like passing shards of glass anyway, as someone else rightly said earlier in this thread!

No-one tells you the love you feel for your baby is like being hit by a truck, and it's so overwhelming you can't breathe and you feel like you're going to explode. Also, that you will spend all your time glancing down at them to see they're still breathing and that you'll poke them if they seem too quiet.

Lastly, no-one tells you that sometimes you don't think it's all worth it and you'd do it all over again right away. I was so traumatised by the birth that it took coming home the following day for me to really think "yes, it was worth it", because to that point I'd just stare at her and remember the pain I went through.

Right now, I say I'm not having any more children. But there are plenty of people with worse experiences than mine who do, so who knows? I'll be kicking myself for it if I do I imagine!

gravitytolls

Congratulations Naki. I bet you do it again, as once your body recovers, the miracle will hit you, the horror will fade, and you'll only remember to kick when you realise you actually are going to do it all again.

Sarahsaver

naki your labour sounds a bit like my latest!
it is overwhelming and amazing how the pain DOES get forgotten and yah boo sucks to people who have told me (yep i cant believe it) not to breastfeed and not to bick bubba up when she cries.
they are tiny for such a short while, in a few years all being well we shall have teenagers;)

but i still got piles LOL :rotfl:

mirrorimage0

i remeber when i got pregnant with my first, and everyone told me how it would change my life and did i want to give up my career etc and how much hard work babies were and birth etc, the thing is i loved it pregnancy, and labour wasnt as bad as i thought it would be, and actully having the baby with me was fantastic, now my big complaint is that no one told me how hard it is when they get older ie 5 plus, im constantly intervening in arguements and trying to find stuff to do that they both like without too many tears, im a negociator, a peace maker, a mother , housewife and i work full time , but i love them amd its all worth while at the end of the day, (it must be im pregnant with number 3)

Naomim

This thread has been so very funny. I have sat here laughing this morning whilst DS has done painting, taken the hose off the hoover for a "gun" knocked juice on the front room carpet and generally made a mess.

Not everyone has symptoms.. morning sickness or sore boobs.
Cleaning your teeth makes you heave
You can constantly taste iron in your mouth
Carpal tunnel syndrome so you can't open the simplest things
My bad back of a number of years disappeared completely :think: Only now coming back now a 3st 3 year old wants picking up all the time.
That an emergency C-section was done under a general anaesthetic and as I couldn't keep anything down by that time the aneasthetist (sp) held my windpipe whilst making me drink an anti sickness solution before nodding off.
That the MW wants you to sit up within 24 hours that you will have the worlds worst trapped wind and have to syche yourself up to get out of bed. ~When you do manage it you are in agony, fart, squelch and swear your way across the room with DH into the bathroom before exploding. He then tells you it's like looking down the barrel of a gun
That babies are noisy sleepers. I spent my first night at home sobbing because I thought he wasn't breathing properly.

Naomi x

ella_ella_ella

OMG i remember reading this entire thread when i was just a few weeks pregnant, my daughter is 9 months old now and worth every single thing i went through a thousand times over

So chin up if your pregnant, its more than worth it in the end x

keelykat

ella_ella_ella wrote: »

OMG i remember reading this entire thread when i was just a few weeks pregnant, my daughter is 9 months old now and worth every single thing i went through a thousand times over

So chin up of you pregnant, its more than worth it in the end x

definatly worth it!

cazscoob

must be as my lot are 7,6,3,8 months and cooking at 24 weeks!

with my last they made out that i had hours, had nothing ready and went crazy where my waters went and oh said he could see the head pmsl! i wasnt caring as i had the gas and air and thats all i was interested in at that moment!