Labor and delivery curiosity!

[anyakitty.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have always been SO curious about the nitty gritty details of labor and delivery. I am fascinated by those shows that come on TLC sometimes depicting natural and home births. I don't ever plan on having children but I just simply must know:

1. Is it really as bad as it is in the movies? Do people really scream/go crazy from the pain? Can you compare contractions to menstrual cramps to give me an idea of how much worse they are?

2. This is the big one... do a lot of women tear? How does THAT feel? Do they stitch you up or do you have to just let it heal or does it just simply depend?

3. After you give birth vaginally, is your vagina really never the same ever again? Is this only a physical, inside thing but also a visual, outside thing?

Please, don't spare me any details, I want it all no matter how questionable. It's either this or asking my boyfriend's sister who is pregnant for the second time and I'd rather not, haha. Thanks in advance!

Comments

[lyenuv.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I pooped. Just a little poolet, but it was there.

[kalaam.livejournal.com]

I loled at "poolet." :)

[belleforbass.livejournal.com]

Your dp. DEADRINGER for my kitten Trix :)

[sickofyourbs.livejournal.com]

We're a poop-private couple, but when I was in labor, my husband walked me to the bathroom and popped me on the can to poop, and then helped me get up when I was done. I was a little mortified, but it was either him or my midwife, and I'd much rather have him see me poop.

[pinkdramon.livejournal.com]

Can you just poop while you're on the hospital bed? (I expect to give birth in a hospital if I give birth.) Like have someone get a tray? I don't know if I'm gona be able to get up to use the bathroom.

[sickofyourbs.livejournal.com]

I had a home-birth.

[atalanta0jess.livejournal.com]

I think the vast majority of women squeeze out some poop when they are pushing. After all...its all so close together down there. Its not a big deal, and you may not even know you're doing it. The hospital table (or your bed, or your floor, or tub) will be prepped to receive some mess - its likely you'll just poop on the chux pads or whatever, and the nurse/midwife/doctor/doula will just whisk it away.

[lyenuv.livejournal.com]

I pooped on the bed, but I had an epidural, so I couldn't stand, much less go on my own (:

[lyenuv.livejournal.com]

My hubby helped the nurse clean me up! I'm one of the "You cant be in the room I poo in" types, but he has no problem walking in on me brushing my hair and pooing, so it wasn't a big deal to him. I figured it'd happen, so it didn't bother me too terribly much.

But yeah, it all went out the window XD Pregnancy kind of makes you lose all modesty, haahaa!

[archangelbeth]

Pregnancy kind of makes you lose all modesty,

*nods sagely* My modesty went out the window around the time they got the epidural in. (Good things for pre-eclampsia, apparently; they lower blood pressure, and since mine was sky-high...) If I couldn't feel it -- and it was the weirdest thing, prodding my stomach and having it be totally numb! -- then it wasn't there and I didn't have to worry about being naked from the waist down to the ankles. (I was wearing my least-favorite pair of socks, and they left those on. My toes were also all tingly "asleep" feeling and I could wiggle my ankles. But from diaphragm to ankles? Wasn't there! Not my problem!)

I... don't know if I had any defecation issues during the c-section. (Couldn't feel it; not my problem!) All the jostling around of my innards did make me throw up, though, which got me the whole "you have to trust that your body knows what it's doing" thing, since I had no conscious control over my stomach muscles. Surreal, spiritual vomiting.

*beth nods sagely again*

[jenny222.livejournal.com]

haha, thanks for your honesty! Reminds me of the children's book "Everybody Poops"

[lyenuv.livejournal.com]

I love that book! It's on the list of books I want to get for my daughter :D!

[awriterswindow.livejournal.com]

LOL so funny. I didn't know this could happen, though, because my mom said that when she told the nurse she couldn't poop during her labor with me, they made her have an enema to flush everything out. Maybe things have changed in the past couple decades, I dunno!