As I prepared for the birth of my first child, I started researching exactly what I should expect. I visited blogs, read online forums, and read all the books. Even with all of my efforts to prepare, there were still plenty of surprises. I am all for helping others, so I thought I'd compile a list of surprises that I and a few women I know encountered while giving birth.
Admittedly, this one is probably my fault. As I've said before, I am a rule-follower, so I did as I was told when the nurse told me to shift from one side to the other to keep the medicine distributed evenly. While shifting, I inadvertently shifted the catheter and quickly learned the error of my ways. The pain came back, up one leg and down the other, and stayed until after my boy had made his grand entrance. I told my husband to get the nurse, I knew I was much too big of a wimp to handle the pain of childbirth, but all the nurse could do was give me bad news. It took half an hour to get the anesthesiologist back up to see me and by that time I was in too much pain to sit up on the bed patiently waiting for him to reposition my line. The good news is that the body-breaking pain magically stops immediately after the baby comes out.
2) You will not care about a birth plan.
I did not have a formal birth plan, but I did have an idea of how I thought things would/should go. All of my ideas flew right out the window when we got down to the nitty gritty of childbirth. I had planned to get my epidural as soon as possible and we all know how that turned out. I also planned to get skin-to-skin immediately afterwards, and we did actually get to do that. My sister planned to have her son vaginally, but she was forced to change her plan when the doctor came in and explained that a c-section was necessary for both her health and the health of the baby. Point being you don't know what is going to happen. If you're a planner, make a plan, but know that you may need to veer from that plan.
3) A c-section is not the 'easy way out'.
This is secondhand information since I have never personally had a c-section, but from what I could gather by watching my sister after her son was born I'm thinking c-section isn't as easy as some people make it out to be. I mean, she had major abdominal surgery and immediately had to begin caring for an infant. There was no 'recovery time.' She also struggled with breastfeeding and I'm convinced that at least part of the reason why was that she was separated from her son for a long while after he was born. She was separated from everyone after he was born! At a time when your child needs to be held the most, she wasn't able to pick him up by herself.
4) Even the most modest people lose their modesty on the moment.
I'm modest. I'm probably one of the most modest people I know, but I no longer cared when it came time to get that baby out. It may have more to do with the pain I was in, but I actually wanted to be naked during labor. I didn't care who saw me either. The nurse asked "Can she stay?" right before I started pushing and I said "Sure, why not?!" without the slightest clue who the nurse was talking about. Looking back, it's comical how naive I was. I was actually going to buy a cute little delivery gown to wear while giving birth. Psh! That thing would've been ruined.
5) You shake uncontrollably afterwards.
This completely caught me off guard. I was dutifully carrying out my skin-to-skin duties while the doctor was completing all of the necessary repairs to my nether region, and I began to convulse uncontollably. I was trying to enjoy the first of many moments of snuggling my baby, but I couldn't because I was shivering so badly. At first I thought I was shaking because the doctor was still sewing me up but it continued through the night until the next morning. Come to think of it, I think it happened for a couple of nights after J was born. I'd shiver myself awake in the middle of the night in the hospital, as if I wasn't already missing enough sleep my body had to sabotage what few hours of sleep that I was getting.
6. Your previous labors mean nothing.
This information comes from a few mommies and nurses that I know. I know women who have had a completely uneventful labor with their first child and had to have an emergency c-section with their second. There are women who labored for more than twenty-four hours with one child and less than two with the next. My nurse friends have told me stories about women who think they're experts on childbirth because they've had one child. These women quickly learn that each birth is unique and should be treated as such.
7. You really do forget the pain.
During labor, I looked at my grandmother who had five children without any pain medicicine and not-so-kindly explained that she must have been an idiot to voluntarily go through that immense pain more than once. She just smiled and nodded. After my baby was born and I got to hold him, she came up and whispered in my ear, "This is why I did it," and I completely understood. That pain is all consuming, but the lifetime of rewards that you reap after it is all said and done is so much greater than those few hours of pain.
John 16:21
A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.
What surprises did you have during childbirth?
No comments:
Post a Comment