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

[shyshutterbug.livejournal.com]

An episiotomy is quickly sewn up in just a couple stitches.

This made me lol without your trying to make me. My mom had an episiotomy and still had a 4th degree tear. She gave me the Precious Gift of Life, and I returned the favor with 50 stitches to the perineum.

(Clearly I started causing trouble early.)

(Edited because I just ended a sentence with a preposition and a Grammar Nerd such as myself knows better.)

[belleforbass.livejournal.com]

You might of got 50 stitches to your mum.

I was "pulled out" after a 26 hour labor, the doctor had apparently had enough, I'm the youngest of 6 I should mention that too. My parents are both nurses.

By the time they got me screaming, my mother was knocked out and in emergency surgery. She couldn't walk for the first 9 months of my life, and has told me continuously that I've done nothing but cause trouble.

19 years later, and she is still going through shit from the crap labor. HOWEVER OP this is rare, the doctor was fed up, Dad and Mum have told me continuously that its very rare, and that the doctor pulled me out with forceps.

[shyshutterbug.livejournal.com]

They used forceps and vacuum to try to get me out, and I just wouldn't cooperate. They'd actually asked my dad to leave the room and change and started to prep my mom for a C-section by the time I was delivered...and then, I didn't cry. My Apgars were in the toilet.

I've had a spot on the top of my skull that's completely numb my entire life - nerve damage due to the vacuum. Other than that, we're both perfectly fine.

[belleforbass.livejournal.com]

In the back of my head there are small dints from the forceps.

I'm completely fine, but because of the complications, mum has had a few minor operations since the first one on the day I was born, now going through a few problems, which will lead to another and more permanent operation in the next 2 years.

I do have to say I love when it gets thrown back in my face that after 6 labors mine was the worst and "you do nothing but cause trouble" (this is mostly all said in fun and games tho)

[shyshutterbug.livejournal.com]

Funny - I never even thought to look or feel for dents. I don't think I have any, but...hmm. *ponders*

My mom doesn't really throw it back in my face regularly, but it's just understood between us that she's got guilt-tripping privileges that cannot possibly ever be revoked, lol.

[belleforbass.livejournal.com]

LOL yeah you can never quite get away from the "what I had to go through to give you life" speeches haha.

Ah I love it though, mum never blames me, its always talked about being the doctors fault.

But I love the dents they make me laugh. haha

[sickofyourbs.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I wasn't aware of cases like that, I'm sorry.

[shyshutterbug.livejournal.com]

Not you at all - I was, er, special.

I'm 150% in favor of as unmedicated and natural a birth experience as the parents desire, but my mom's labor was one of those cases where if it hadn't been for modern medicine, one or both of us wouldn't have survived.

[sickofyourbs.livejournal.com]

I understand. My labor did have it's ugly moments, particularly at the end - my son's vitals dropped, and when he was born, he didn't cry. Looking back at that, I am proud that I did it naturally, and will do it again... but next time, we'll be at the hospital for it.

[shyshutterbug.livejournal.com]

Your pride in that is deserved. I have immense respect for women who undergo an unmedicated labor and delivery.

My dad, at the time of my birth, was a quasi-professional photographer, and he took an amazing picture that might explain a lot about why I didn't cry: it's from right after I was delivered (hadn't even been cleaned off yet), the OB is holding me, and my face holds absolutely no indication that I might even want to cry. In fact, if I had to pick something going through my head, I'd go with, "What the hell is this???"

Mmkay, that had little to do with anything, but I just thought I'd share. Probably one of the better pictures of myself, actually...lol.

[shyshutterbug.livejournal.com]

I should probably add as an addendum to this that I was 8#, 13 oz. At the time, I was the largest baby to be born in my family. Now I'm the smallest to be born within the past 25 years.

Doesn't really bode well for MY hypothetical future children :/

[analogwatch.livejournal.com]

I was 10 pounds, 15 ounces.

I'm scared to DEATH of vaginal births, lol. I'm fully expecting to have to have an emergency c-section - I had (Is that the right word?) shoulder dystocia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoulder_dystocia), and let me tell you - finding out that's a MEDICAL EMERGENCY AND OMG THE BABY CAN DIIIIIEEEE from watching TLC made me appreciate life just a teensy bit more.

[shyshutterbug.livejournal.com]

10#15??? Um. Yow.

My cousin's first child was an emergency c/s for shoulder dystocia, too. (Her second was a VBAC, about which she was thrilled - she carried a lot of sadness around after her c/s.)

Me, I just kicked Mom in the lumbar spine most of her labor, lol.

[analogwatch.livejournal.com]

My mother had a VBAC for my brother, then my sister after me, then had to have another emergency c/s with my baby brother because of diabetes and pre-eclampsia, if I do recall. I'm always glad when women get to have the VBAC they want. :)

[analogwatch.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention - I was the biggest of my siblings - my sister was 10lbs, 3oz, my brother was 9 lbs 8 oz, and my baby brother was 9 lbs 3 oz... and he was premature! :(