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

[revoless.livejournal.com]

A few notes on this: I'm extremely anxious naturally and cannot bring myself to breath while in pain or exerting myself. Tried for years, just can't do it. I've passed out while exercising due to this. I'm also internally very small and had an eight pound baby. The labour was also very fast: the epidural slowed it, and they gave me additional drugs to slow it, but still everything happened all at once and my body was not prepared for it at all. All of this combined with people telling me to push when I was only 90% dilated led to... bad things. But with the baby intermittently distressed, it was either that or a c-section (not something you want to hear on your birthing bed, let me tell you...)