We all have had our labor plan picked out since before we even knew the gender of the baby. We all are told of the horror stories and, “oh it’s not that bad” tales. I’m here to share yet another birth story; one that will hopefully make you feel more normal.
I have had two births. First being vaginal and second being an emergency c-section. With both, I had expectations of pain and discomfort. I was prepared for counting contractions and not being able to walk. I was ready for the pain. What I wasn’t ready for was not feeling anything at all.
My contractions felt like a flick of my stomach compared to how people made them sound like. They didn’t worsen. They didn’t get closer together. They just were a slight cramp. Honestly, my annual OBGYN appointments left me with more painful cramps than this. When talking to other moms I would always bluff and say, “Yeah that pain was horrible.”
In all actuality, I just didn’t want to be that jerk that said I didn’t really feel pain when they did. I guess I just wanted to be more sympathetic than the guys at the gym talking about how they can bench more than one another. I craved just to feel what these other women were feeling.
Looking back now, I’m super happy that I didn’t feel anything. I wish I would have told my doctors and been more vocal about it. I wish I could have had the confidence to say, yeah… I don’t need the medication because I’m not in pain. I took it willingly out of a fear that this pain would eventually come. I’m curious if it would have. If I would have felt anything. Who knows.
During my second pregnancy, my water punctured. Yeah, didn’t break. Just had a slow leak for about two days. Apparently, that was supposed to alert me to go to the hospital, but it was so gentle that I barely didn’t notice it with the amount of other gross fluids going on. I didn’t have my water break with my first one and I had this movie expectation of water all over the floor and instant pain. As we’ve discussed though, no pain. Just a slow leak. The only way I knew I was in labor was because of how frequent the leak was, so I scheduled an OBGYN appointment. From there we were rushed to the hospital because I was already 7 cm dilated.
Now let’s talk about dilation. Did you know that you can waddle around for a month 5 cm dilated and never naturally get there? This was news to me as we had our first kid and I felt like the head was crowning for a month straight. I spent my entire last month of pregnancy thinking this kid was going to squeeze out of me anytime I sneezed. Even when they induced me on her due date, I still wasn’t dilating. It took for the nurse to recommend that I rolled from one side to the other for my labor to go active.
Was birth what you expected? Every birth story is as unique as the little one that came from it. If you are expecting, please don’t fret if things seem a little different. Be vocal and ask questions. No question is a stupid question.
