As I mentioned in my post the other week (HERE: what they didn’t tell you about pregnancy) I thought I would continue this series with: ‘What they didn’t tell you about birth.’
I might keep this one brief as I am definitely not an expert on every single unique child birth that has ever happened.
- That every single birth story is different and will not be the same as everyone else’s experience.
- That if your water breaks, you dont have to immediately get rushed to the hospital in that moment as you have seen on the movies. Your baby may not come for a couple of days later and if you are in labour, your contractions might not start for several hours after.
- That you can labour at home until you are ready to go to hospital.
- That you may or may not do a number two on the delivery bed…sorry.
- That your husband will impress you with his support, care and emotions.
- You don’t realise how strong you are and how you can handle pain.
- That the pain kind of feels like period pain times 50 but will only last for a few minutes and disappear like nothing ever happened, until the next one.
- That there is a thing called the ‘tens’ machine that you can sick onto your back and hold the remote to distract your pain with, it sends a tingle to your back to defer your mind.
- You might get scared.
- You might get scared to push and to face reality.
- That some mothers go through labour quietly, whilst some sure don’t.
- The intense pain comes when you push, it feels like a burning feeling when the babies head is coming out… sorry.
- If you have an epidural, I have heard you still feel the pushing pain.
- In a cesarean, it is like you are or well, you actually are, in an operating theatre and it is very clinical.
- During a cesarean, a curtain is raised up from your chest so you dont see what the doctor is doing.
- That when your baby comes out and you meet it for the first time, you may or may not feel instant love.
- When your meet your baby, you might be shaking, nervous, unsure and emotionally lost.
- What we do know is, that no matter how the baby enters your arms in the end, no matter how you felt the first time you saw it, no matter what gender you were secretly wishing for, you will love the child more than you will ever or would have ever known love before. It is a love you can’t describe properly, it is an everlasting love and your heart will be full in a way you have never felt in your entire life.
