Yahoo Lifestyle Mothers Are Sharing The Unexpected Parts Of Giving Birth That Nobody Warned Them About
We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who've given birth to share the unexpected parts of childbirth that they weren't prepared for. Here's what they revealed:
1."I didn't know that you had to push out the placenta after having the baby. Mine flew out and flopped on the floor, causing my husband to faint."
2."The biggest surprise for me the first time was that I had no pain in my stomach or abdomen during labor. All of the pain was like a red-hot wire wrapped around my spine. I was expecting it the second time, 12 years later. I was also surprised that my first labor started with a big gush (my water breaking) after hearing over and over that water breaking to start labor was a myth and that there wouldn't be a big gush. The second time, it broke at the start of labor, but it wasn't as much of a gush."
3."Your blood volume increases when you are pregnant, which is what causes the famous swelling in your hands and feet. Once you give birth, all that extra fluid must leave your body. I woke up every night for at least a week, completely drenched in sweat. Not one pregnancy book or forum prepared me for that. Also, it takes a while for your uterus to shrink back down to its previous size and for all of your organs to move back to where they were. My body felt so uncomfortable during that transition."
4."You'll be sweating, enduring the most excruciating pain, and then suddenly, out the baby pops, and you're shaking from head to toe uncontrollably, but the pain is totally gone. It was the most surreal moment of my entire life. I was a little off my rocker from the pain (unmedicated home birth), but the instant clarity I felt once she was out was SO bizarre. It was like a light switch. I really wish someone had warned me about the shakes. They were so intense that I could not stop shaking for nearly 30 minutes. Of all the things, that felt the most embarrassing to me for some reason! I would also add taking your first shower makes you feel like an alien from a different planet."
5."How quick your first time giving birth can be. Everyone, including the doctors, said, 'It's going to take a long time.' My water broke at 8:26 p.m., and we barely made it to the hospital. I was pushing in the labor waiting room, making primal noises, and by the time I got to a bed, they told me to keep my legs together. I was too far along for an epidural, the nurses wouldn't make eye contact with me when I was screaming for drugs, my doctor barely made it, and when she got there, she told me to flip onto my back, and that was that. I had my daughter at 10:27 p.m., two hours and one minute after my water broke and contractions started. The nurses called me 'fast and furious.'"
6."The bill. Without insurance, my first would have cost $50,000 and my second would've been $60,000. They were both C-sections but didn’t require any additional or emergency care post-birth, and we were discharged within the normal time frame."
7."I wish I'd known how painful it could be to deliver the placenta. I had thought it would just slip out after the baby; I was not happy about how much it hurt to push that out after the baby. I'm not sure that I would have wanted to know ahead of time that it's possible to break your tailbone giving birth, but I found out the hard way when I had my second."
8."The doctor's office told me not to come to the hospital until my labor pains were three minutes apart. My baby was born after 30 hours of labor, and my pains were never less than five minutes apart (some longer apart)."
9."Nobody told me you push out poop during the moment. I felt so embarrassed when I smelled it that I couldn't stop thinking about it instead of focusing on the last contractions."
—Anonymous
10."I'd say it was the deep, deep, deep love and joy I felt when I first held my son. I didn't know that I was capable of such depth of emotion. But that joy also comes with deep, deep, deep pain — the pain of them not being your babies anymore, seeing their baby features vanish slowly, and suddenly getting glimpses of the grown-up that they (hopefully) will be one day. It's terrifying that they won't always see me as the center of the universe. My wise cousin told me I couldn't protect them from the world. I needed to teach them to navigate it with sense and integrity. But why can't I just be a helicopter mum and still have them turn out wonderfully? Being a parent is not for the faint-hearted, seriously."
11."That epidurals can fail. And they do, often. I had two failures when I was giving birth to my daughter, so I got the full force of pitocin-induced labor without any pain blockers. Super not fun."
12."How violated I would feel! From nurses flipping up the sheets to 'check my progress' to lactation specialists manhandling my breasts, I felt violated at every turn."
13."The way my body is reacting to postpartum hormones (because of breastfeeding, the doctors think) is unreal. I've had to get a ton of tests to rule things out, and in the end, doctors are just like, 'I guess it's just hormones.' What?!? So I have to ride out some gross body things until I decide to ween my child, and even then, who knows how long until I regulate? I feel like when doctors don't know the answer to what is happening with my body, they can now just say, 'Oh, it's postpartum.' Also, everyone tells you about the hormonal crash after delivery. They say the change is like dropping off a cliff. I worked very hard to get my anxiety under control and learn coping mechanisms that work for me over the last 15 years...and guess what? None of that mattered."
"I have never felt the depression, anxiety, and hopelessness I did for the first seven days after delivery. I am SO LUCKY that it didn't last longer for me and that I have a fantastic support system, but there was a certain level of me just having to ride it out. I thought I was prepared after talking to other moms, but there was no way they could have prepared me for how I'd feel. Luckily, they prepared me for talking about it! I think that was the game-changer. I knew I had safe people to tell my dark and stormy thoughts to, so I wouldn't sit with them.
One more thing: You see in movies and shows that women scream when they are pushing. So, I did. By my third push, the nurse said, 'I want you to stop doing that, hold that energy in, and put it into the push.' My baby came out with the next contraction/push, and I genuinely think it's because I redirected that energy."
14."I didn't know an epidural can wear off. It was the most excruciating pain ever!! No more kids for me. I also did not know back labor was a thing until it was happening to me. The labor pain was in my thighs, not my stomach at all. It was awful."
15."After I gave birth to my firstborn, I experienced unimaginable pain while the midwife attempted to help deliver the placenta. After the placenta was out, the midwife, at first glance, thought I had started passing a fibroid from my vagina. She quickly realized that my uterus had inverted and had to push it back into place! I was sent home with my newborn less than two days later. I asked if the amount of postpartum bleeding I was experiencing was normal, and I was reassured that everything was okay. It wasn't. I was so weak from blood loss that I could barely stand, and I ended up back in the hospital less than 24 hours after I got home, in dire need of a blood transfusion. Uterine inversion is rare, and I didn't experience it during my second delivery, but it's something I'll never forget...although I wish I could!"
—Anonymous
16."The idea of the epidural terrified me. A huge needle going into my spine sounded like a horrible nightmare, but once you're at the stage where you need that, the contractions hurt so much you hardly notice the needle."
17."They didn't frickin' give me a hospital gown, so I gave birth in an XXL t-shirt with the Dassault logo on it that my father-in-law had given me for gardening. I think they just forgot because my clinic was great otherwise."
18."I had NO IDEA that going into labor can make you barf. No one warned me, so we picked up Taco Bell on the way to the hospital. Yeah, that was a terrible decision."
19."I had a C-section and could not believe how much fluid they must have pumped into me post-op. My legs and feet were so swollen they were unrecognizable, and it took at least three weeks for them to return to normal."
—Anonymous
20."I was in labor for a long while with my first baby. When the doctor said it was time to deliver, I realized I'd totally forgotten about that part. Labor was so overwhelming that I had dissociated from the whole 'getting a baby' part."
21.And: "I found it frustrating that leading up to the birth, you're told all births and pregnancies are different, but once you hit the labor ward, you're treated like a textbook pregnancy, and you really have to advocate for yourself, especially if it's your first. I was in a lot of pain during my first labor from the get-go, and it turned out she was back to back, which is supposedly a lot more painful and wasn't found until I was pushing. So the 'go home and have a paracetamol' advice I got did not help in the slightest. I was in so much pain I couldn't sit or lie down. I just had to ride it out until they eventually admitted me (and that was only because I'd tested positive for Strep B)."
What was the most unexpected part of pregnancy or giving birth for you? Tell us in the comments or share anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-800-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.
