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

Re: This scares me

[stormwindz.livejournal.com]

Well, I went into labour on my due date, though the cramping was so mild it took me ages to realize it was the 'real thing'. I had mild cramps for five hours before I finally figured it out and decided to ring the midwife, who suggested taking a couple of paracetamol and going back to bed. I did (just regular strength, that would never ever help me for period pains) but then rang her back saying, umm... you should probably come by anyway because it's been going on for some time... she came over an hour later, promptly told me I sounded too 'comfortable' on all fours and needed to squat, made me move and 15 minutes later my daughter was born!

The pain never got as bad as my period cramps, it was a bit of a burning pain once I started squatting (when I reached down to touch her head as it crowned that was very much an ouch - fire! sensation) but never anywhere near so bad I felt I wanted/missed/needed any additional pain relief.

Anyway, to answer the original questions, in case anyone is going back through old posts (like I am):

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?

For me: Not so bad as the movies. Yes, with the yelling, the girls in the flat above rang the landlord to raise some concerns re domestic abuse - luckily our landlord knew we were planning a home birth around Xmas. And contractions - much, much milder and less constant, and not in the same place (my period pains are on the sides of my body quite high up, the contractions were further down and a bit more 'together' in the middle - all your innards get moved around when you're pregnant I suppose), even when they were close together near the end there were breaks during which I could breathe and think.

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?

I did not tear so I can't say how it feels. I can say that mere bruising between the legs is worse than any rough sex I've ever had, and I had to sit down very, veeeery slowly, one butt cheek at a time, for the first week afterwards.

I do work in a physiotherapy department which includes obs and gynae physio - a lot of women do tear, and do so to different 'degrees', you can tear a little, or all the way from your vagina to your anus, or a little further into your anus. So they will stitch if it is a very big tear, if you give them permission to (you could chose to let it heal naturally, like any large wound, though perhaps not recommended). They should give you some follow up to make sure things are healed and your pelvic floor activity hasn't been compromised - if it has there are, as mentioned by others in above replies, things you can do about it.

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?

My vagina looked different from the outside for about a month afterwards (huge, gaping hole, very dark red skin not from the lochia itself). It feels different to the touch even now, it has rough spots where it didn't before, inside and out. Sex feels much more sore, but I'm only nine weeks post partum now so can't say how long this will last!

Something you didn't ask about but I will mention as I'd developed expectations about - the cramping and bleeding after giving birth was _nothing_ like a period, which is what it gets compared to in a lot of the literature I'd read. The bleeding was heavy, light, stopped for two weeks, then heavy for another week and a half, clumpy, black, red, brown, yellow, very, very random. And the cramping - OMFG it was worse than contractions, worse than period pains ever were! Breastfeeding exacerbated the cramping for the first four days afterwards and I cried quite a few times because it hurt so, so much and due to, well, the breastfeeding, you can't really curl up or massage your stomach or take strong painkillers or anything! And I had no idea how long it was going to be so bad so I couldn't even tell myself the end was in sight.

All over now though and feeding, although messy, is no longer agony! Yay for babies!