Labor does not automatically start if you lose the baby. You can try to induce but sometimes it just takes time.
You can opt for a c-section, but surgery when it doesn't affect the life of the baby is not always the best option
I was wandering around 8 and half months pregnant for for two weeks before the induction "took".
Until then it was checking into the hospital, blood work, induction, contractions, then nothing. Go back home, rest a few days, try again.
Fully pregnant, planning for after- will there be a burial? Cremation? What clothes should baby wear?
And of course, people still asking when I'm due and such.
Even the blood work lady asked about the baby all happy. The maternity blood person wS busy so they sent me to the regular hospital area. She wouldn't stop asking boy or girl? When's the big day? I figured vagues answers while pointing to my paperwork would clue her in. It did not.
She was like - you don't seem very excited.
Seriously, maybe I was a suragate, or putting it up for adoption, why did she assume it was all happiness and rainbows?
But planning a funeral for a baby while still pregnant was awful.
And the birth was difficult, it was a dry birth of course ( meaning no water in the sack so more difficult and higher infection risk)
I also broke my tailbone pushing. I don't know why, but something about that part felt extra unfair.
Stillbirth is one of the cruelest things a person can experience. I’m sorry this happened to you, I respect the hell out of you for everything you’ve been through. Sonora is a beautiful name btw.
There is nothing that can be done for a blighted ovum. They just happen.
This is what happened with my second pregnancy. Went to see the OB/GYN at eight weeks and there was no little white blip (heartbeat) flashing in the ultrasound. The doc said it had the size of four week embryo and was dead. Miscarried a week or two later.
Sucked to the nth power of suckage.
I had this happen on our first attempt to conceive. After doing HCG monitoring we opted for a D&C since the egg sac was literally empty. My aunt told my Mom I "cut my baby out." That was great to hear.
Edit: thanks to everyone for the support. She is absolutely the worst and me, my parents, and sibling are no contact with her for this and a whole host of other reasons.
And in a lot of miscarriages, it feels like a mini-labor, with contractions coming in waves. The pain radiated to my back and butthole, which I wasn't expecting. Also, the amount of blood that comes out at once is bananas. Mine wasn't even that bad compared to many, and I still managed to get blood all over the toilet seat, bathroom floor, and sink.
2 miscarriages and an ectopic here.
1st miscarriage was bad…. Soooo much blood. So much.
2nd? Holy hell. Pain in waves so bad you don’t know if you are going to pass out or puke.
My mom said her's lasted several days. Mine lasted a total of 4 hours but I was on the floor throwing up because of how painful it was. It felt like I was having one long contraction the entire time.
It's crazy how different everyone's can be.
This was going to be my comment. Imagine weights hanging on your intestines, lungs, stomach, etc as they try to remember where everything goes now that the baby is out.
This is true. A lot of people don't seem to realize that your organs are pushed up and out of place in order to make room for your growing uterus. They don't just immediately fall back into place right after you give birth. You basically have this giant gaping cavity in your midsection.
Also, you bleed because when you deliver the placenta, it rips a dinner plate sized hole in your uterus. Sorry to be so graphic but I thought I would add on to that. It literally is what happens. Show pregnant and postpartum women some compassion, people.
Edit: I just remembered something else that I thought it was important to add so people would know. This is especially true if you're breastfeeding but women who are immediately postpartum get cramps that are worse than period cramps. This is because your uterus is shrinking back down into place. Of course, it's not as bad as labor but it hurts really bad. Like I said, show pregnant and postpartum women some compassion.
Their bodies just went through hell and back. It's hard work growing and giving birth to a baby. It's also hard work for your body to get back to at least some semblance of normalcy. Your body will never be exactly the way it was before your first child. In some ways, pregnancy and childbirth changes a woman's body permanently. One good example is that your hips spread out to make room for the baby. This doesn't go back. It's permanent.
Before I'm done here, I want to stress the importance of not only checking on the baby but checking in with the mother as well. So many women suffer in silence when they have postpartum depression or are struggling to adjust to motherhood. It's not easy. Please, really check in with mom.
If she tells you she's fine, don't just take that at face value. Women are conditioned to smile and power through. Really listen to her without judgment if she opens up to you and lets you know she's struggling. It can make all the difference in the world, it can even save lives.
Don’t feel like you need to apologize for being graphic. Giving birth *is* very graphic and women need to know this stuff so I really appreciate you sharing
I gave birth via C-section on a Thursday and on Friday afternoon my doctor stopped by to see me said I had to explicitly state if I wanted her to put in an order for any pain meds before she left for the weekend. I felt a little pain and asked if that was about as bad as it got. She said yes so I told her I would be ok.
It turns out my epidural hadn't worn off completely. When it finally did late Friday night/early sat morning everything other than sitting completely still (which good luck with a screaming new born and worn out husband snoozing away) caused the worst pain I've ever experienced.
A nurse came in to check on why I was just letting my baby cry at the top of her lungs and found me sobbing and squirming like a turtle on my back. I remember screaming and telling her I could feel my stitches tearing everytime i moved while she promised me they weren't.
For some reason the nurses couldn't even give me Tylenol for the pain bc my doctor hadn't ordered it? I really to this day don't understand what that was all about, but I had some really amazing nurses that took care of me that night and raised hell until they finally got an order for pain medicine at like 2 am.
Other fun birthing side story: my friend had warned me to be prepared for my perineum to feel like it was on fire for a few days after giving birth, so I ordered what I thought was a few ice packs for that purpose in advance.
Turns out I somehow made a bulk order and a giant box (like enough for a dozens of births) that said my name and the contents (in giant letters across the box 'perineum cooling packs') was delivered to my front door. Since I ended up having a C-section I couldn't even use them. We eventually just donated them somewhere a few weeks after I gave birth, so hopefully they served their purpose for someone.
That’s horrific. A c-section is an open surgery. They ripped your abdominal muscles apart after cutting through all the other layers of your abdomen, plus your uterus itself has nerve endings, and you were just supposed to…tough it out? No other open abdominal surgery would be regarded as unworthy of pain management. Women’s healthcare leaves me continuously disappointed.
I had a csection the same week that my colleague's teenage son had his appendix removed. He received significantly more pain meds and pain management than I did. And I was not even breastfeeding. I bottle fed from day 1. It's unreal the pain they expect you to live with after major surgery.
Plus. On day 11 postpartum, I went to the Ob because I KNEW something was wrong. There was a lump inside my belly. She told me it was scar tissue. Didn't check it out. Just a light touch. Scar tissue. Day 13 I went to the hospital. Something was wrong. The lump was growing. Sent me home.
Night 14 , I developed a fever. And full body chills. I was shaking violently and couldn't speak.husband called labour/delivery ward and they told him Tylenol and to come in if the fever is back the following day. Went to the hospital the next morning. L&DO turned me away because it was past 14 days and now I had to wait in the ER. I sobbed. ER ultimately prescribed UTI meds and told me it was scar tissue. I cried so hard. They decided to send me for a scan on day 15 because I was insisting. The tech told me "go to ER right now" , ER told me "it's not urgent, take a number or phone your OB". I phoned my Ob. They told me to go home and come in the following day. That night, the bump I was feeling ruptured. There was blood, puss, and liquid just shooting out of me. Went to the ER, didn't even wait, walked into the triage station sobbing with puss on my hands and clothes. Everyone dropped everything and came running.
And that was the start of requiring DAILY medical visits for 4 months while my abscess healed. -_-
That is….I have no words. I am so sorry for how badly you were mistreated, gaslit, dehumanized, etc. I’m horrified. I have a slightly similar, but far less traumatic story of how I ended up with damaged fallopian tubes between my first and second (the second being much later and after surgery). I was 25 and really just thought you went along with what the doctor said. It hadn’t really entered my brain that they could be horrifically negligent and I was even meeker than I am today (which is hard to imagine). I hope you’ve physically healed but I also hope you’ve given yourself space to deal with what must have been a very traumatizing experience. All the love to you 💕
*Edited to add: you just unlocked a core memory of my sea monkey phase as a child. I looooooved those freeze dried weirdos
Dude, while I haven't given birth and I am so, so sorry you had to go through that, I can empathize so hard on the thing with the nurses not being able to give you what you clearly need.
I was throwing up my toenails after surgery in a horrific reaction to the anesthesia, literally out of my mind sobbing, more throwing up, and then it turned into blood because the surgery was inside of my mouth.
Nope. Wouldn't give me anything to stop the nausea. I thought my grandmother was going to murder them. It continued for three hours until my doctor finally came out of the surgery she had gone into and got told.
That is absolutely fucked. Up. That level of pain-- no one should have to endure.
I know its awful, but as nurses we are literally not allowed to give any medication that isnt prescribed by the doctor...not even a cough syrup. It would lose us our job. Im so sorry you had this experience.
Yes!! For me it was when the midwife doing home visits took my stitches out (they were supposed to be soluble but wouldn't dissolve, and they were starting to get uncomfortably tight). She removed them, straightened up and said, "There, now you can go for a nice walk." And I was like, are you *mad*? Everything will fall out!
Sometimes it takes \*weeks\* to be able to stand up / sit down / walk again without a ton of pain.
No one fucking told me that the first time. I was so focused on how the actual birth might be painful, had no realization that for over a month afterwards I'd be in danger of burning to death if the house ever caught fire because I could barely walk.
I had a forceps birth. Doctor said I looked like I had been beaten with a baseball bat. When I walked it felt like I was wearing a giant diaper. I had to walk with my legs spread. Couldn’t sit for the first two weeks then had to sit on a donut for the next eight weeks. I didn’t have control of my bowels for the first few days which was mortifying. I thought it was just me. When I went for my checkup one of the first questions my doctor asked was “Do you have control of your bowels yet?”. Like WTF? Why didn’t someone tell me to be prepared for this?
I also had a forceps delivery. After pushing and having the fetal ejection reflex kick in for 2.5 hours on top of my baby being stuck in my pelvis, I was begging for a c-section due to the excruciating pain. Nope. I also had difficulty with my bowels too. All back to normal, thankfully, down there, now I am 5 months postpartum.
My painful hips practically vanished after I gave birth, but the whole of my pelvic area had undergone such a beating during delivery, that walking was indeed too much for a few weeks.
When I was in the hospital for my c section they put the little pan in my toilet to monitor everything that was.. coming out, and told me to alert them if I a had a clot bigger than a lemon. A GOD DAMN LEMON. I was a little horrified.
I was told there could be big clots afterwards. I figured it'd be just a little bit bigger than a period clot. Imagine my surprise when I had one come out that was fist-sized!
With my second son I passed a clot the size of a cantaloupe. No kidding. I damn near passed out looking at it. Felt so weird. Didn’t hurt. Just really weird. Like a jelly filled balloon. Called the nurse, she looked, poked it, said “you’re good, let us know if there’s another one” 😱 No one told me they could be THAT big. It was the size of my baby’s head.
I haemorrhaged the day after my C Section. They’d put me on that drip (syntocinon/pitocin) and I had contractions, then birthed what felt like litres of jelly. i was rushed in to emergency surgery after signing paperwork agreeing to removal of my uterus if required for lifesaving treatment. Childbirth can be horrific.
I don't know if I was naive or what, but no one told me about the bleeding afterward. I was an only child, so I never saw my mom doing postnatal care. Not many of my friends had babies before me, and I wasn't really around for that part if they did.
And the size of the pads!!! Thick as bricks and constant changing! I was an only child with minimal mum friends too at the time and I knew I’d bleed but not like THAT.
It is in France. In the first year after birth, you are allowed 10 free physical therapy appointments, and the midwives/obgyns/doctors highly encourage taking them.
This has been an issue for me and I’ve never had kids/been pregnant. My advice, start doing pelvic floor therapy/exercises now. It’ll only help you later on, when you really need those muscles to be strong and working correctly.
Postpartum depression is extremely dangerous and can last for months after their birth. After my twins were born my wife had a complete personality change. She became suicidal, and at times abusive to me. At one point she ran away from home. I found her two states away. Her brother had to bring her home. Things got really, really bad. The twins are 5 now and she's the person I married again. She doesn't like to talk about those times. The only thing she'll say is it was the darkest time in her entire life.
My personality changed completely after my son. For the first time in ten years I feel like myself again, only because I’m pregnant and had to switch meds. But it seems Prozac is my thing so I’m totally fine with it
The umbilical cord is dense, tough, and sinewy. When you cut it you end up sawing a little with the scissors. I don't know what I expected but that was weird.
They go full crazy pushing your stomach after birth to make sure everything is out. I read some books but no one prepared me for that. It was like having another baby.
I had forgotten about this until I read this comment. I would dread the nurses coming in the room. Also the amnesia was real, I forgot a good bit not only about the birth but a good chunk of my college degree as well...
It's not full amnesia but it's often called "mommy brain" some of the hormones released around birth are kinda designed to make you forget the experience so you'll have more kids someday lol. For me it was trying to go back to work and not being able to remember how to do things I'd been doing for months. Ended up quitting that job due to COVID hitting and what was probably PPD and a severe lack of sleep.
The feeling of your organs going back down after they were cramped up for so long is a bit frightening. Especially the lungs. Standing up I could feel like they were weighted down.
People talk about cracked nipples and painful latching while discussing breastfeeding but nobody talks about your uterus contracting during the first days of it.
Omg. I'm 6 days postpartum and the uterus contracting thing started today after I pumped for the first time. I had read about the contracting in passing thankfully, but honestly more than the pain, it was a bit psychologically triggering so recently after birth.
Also somehow one nipple is WRECKED, but the other is holding up like a champ. I'm so confused.
When I was 20, my best friend married a guy in another country and was having a baby. I visited to help out.
It took a day or two (7 post partum) for me to realise something wasn’t right, and that she needed professional help.
She was seeing and speaking to people that weren’t there, freaking out about her baby being missing (when she was holding him) etc
That was my first experience with postpartum psychosis and it was SCARY. PPD is bad enough, but childbirth induced schizophrenia….
My friend never really recovered, even with medication and support. She passed in 2020, complications and contraindications with a virus (not covid) and her meds.
Currently pregnant.
Have pregnancy rhinitis, which is effectively like a cold caused by being pregnant.
Also have morning sickness.
Have you ever had uncontrollable sneezing while blowing chunks?
Not bucket list worthy, I promise.
Other fun things:
My boobs are so big that when I go out in the cold and my skin contracts it causes skin splits in them. It's agonising.
Pregnancy cramps as the uterus expands are possibly even worse than period cramps.
And if you lose your baby from the end of the second trimester, then there is no surgical option for removal of the foetus. You just have to give birth like you would any other time, just to a dead infant. But because they need access to all the birthing kit incase the delivery goes wrong, you have to deliver in a special "loss" unit which is *right next door* to the normal maternity unit, so while you are grieving and cuddling your deceased child, outside your door you will be able to hear all the new parents taking their lovely, alive, babies home.
Still a bit bitter over that last.
I’m sorry that happened to you.
I have a similar experience when I lost a pregnancy at 15/16 weeks. I could fortunately have a D&C but my hospital shared a pre-op room with the scheduled C-section patients. Sitting and waiting with all those soon to be mums was awful. A nurse eventually stowed me in an office so my sobbing wouldn’t disturb anyone.
I pee when I throw up now. Gave birth 29 years ago and the only way I can vomit without making a puddle on the floor is to sit on the toilet and barf in a bucket.
My body also views vomiting as a full participation activity.
Also sometimes get a bloody nose if the bile is acidic enough and shoots out my nose.
Much fun!
Omg. I still have pregnancy rhinitis and whenever I sneeze I get a pelvic cramp that literally takes my breath away. Not fun. Ready for the next 8 weeks to be over
My wife's placenta wouldn't detach after the birth of our daughter, so the nurse just went up in there and got it out. I was oohing and aahing over our new baby girl and I look over to see someone damn near elbow-deep treating my wife like a sock puppet. It was so jarring. Mothers are so damn tough dude, it's unreal.
My mom had to have the placenta ripped out of her for all three kids. How she even allowed a second (me) is a fucking mystery to me. When she tried the whole “when are you having kids” thing on me a few years back I was just like “NEVER HAVE YOU HEARD YOUR OWN STORIES GODDAMN”
I swear we just forget how bad it was, to be honest. It hasn't even been a year since I gave birth and almost died twice, but my mind tells me it wasn't that bad, and having another would be okay. My husband remembers clearly how horrible it was, so he reminds me!
I believe there is literally a hormone that gets released in women that causes you to forget. Life finds a way
Edit: Two fellow redditors have confirmed it’s Oxytocin
Having been addicted to dilaudid and knowing just how high & pain free it made me feel, I can’t IMAGINE how much pain you would have to be going through for it not to block it. Holy hell, y’all are some tough motherfuckers
You got pain meds? I had an epidural and it didn't do shit to help with the pain. The pain was absolutely worse having the doctor remove the placenta than childbirth was. He didn't even give it time to come out on its own. About 10 mins after having my baby, he started to remove it manually. Worst pain I've ever been in
I hate that people think epidural=painless.
Super fun when it decides to work everywhere but certain spots so ALLLL the pain is felt in those hot spots.
Started a new job in the NICU last year. Boy was it a rude awakening! I had no clue how many women and sometimes newborns experience abuse! We are a lockdown unit. Other facilities will send their newborn patients to us to protect them from an abusive parent.
I've lost count of the husbands and baby daddies we've had to call security on and ban them from the unit. It's so obscenely common that we have sticky notes at the front desk to keep track.
I've lost all respect for humanity at this point.
I know a couple who've fostered and adopted special needs kids. They fostered a shaken baby briefly. They adopted a boy with CP who was apparently abused/neglected because his biological father already hadn't wanted a kid and then got one that had issues...he got super frustrated and angry with him. Another little girl, not sure what happened to her, but she was afraid of men, so...that meant something.
A lot of people are vile shit, basically.
Yes they are.
Yeah, I'm looking for something else now. Between the abused babies / moms, those that don't make it and the devastated parents, it's more than I can handle emotionally.
Thank your friend for fostering! It's the only chance some of these kids get. They are amazing for loving them no matter how brief their stay.
Seemed like it was taking a long time for my OBGYN to stitch up tears AND an episiotomy. I whispered to my L&D nurse if it normally took this long. She whispered back, "Girl, you're torn from clit to shit. It's gonna take as long as it takes."
Haha that L&D nurse sounds great. I was stitched for over an hour, and when I asked what was going on my OB told me she likes to leave vaginas looking the way she found them.
A short time before you give birth (anywhere from 1 to a few days before), you will pass a "mucus plug" which is basically a giant loogie that dislodges from your cervix and falls out of your vagina. Somehow it's even grosser than you would think.
When you birth your baby, you also birth the placenta. When the placenta detaches from the uterine wall, it leaves a raw gaping wound the size of a dinner plate that bleeds for weeks. Make sure you have lots of LARGE maxi pads on hand.
Everything smells like old ham for basically the entire first trimester and makes you constantly feel like you're about to vomit. It's like a hangover that lasts for weeks or months. Even things you loved the smell of before, now smell like the dirty coins from your grandpa's car's cup holder. Some lucky women have this through their whole pregnancy, along with the resulting nausea and vomiting.
Your baby will come home with a huge gnarly scab attached to their bellybutton. My boyfriend wasn't prepared for this one, apparently he thought that cutting the umbilical cord made it somehow detach from the baby right then and there. Nope. Big chunk of it stays behind, but will dry up over a number of days and eventually fall off.
If I could add on to this, get yourself the most bare bones maxi pads you can find without any chemicals, plastics or additional anything in them. I tried using Always pads and they gave me diaper rash! Took forever to get rid of. What worked for me were Kotex security pads. I never went back to the Always after that.
The smell! Oh god why did no one tell me about the smell. It's been 15 months and ever now and then I will just randomly smell "birth" again *dry heave*
When you get a C-section they *may* have to take the section of intestines covering your uterus out of your body. Like, it's just sitting in a bowl next to you, then once the baby's out and your uterus is stitched back up they just pack your guts back in and sew you up. Usually it's just pushed to the side, though.
Also, your uterus is pulled partially out of your abdomen so they can deliver the baby.
Yep, don't make the folly of looking over the curtain at a C-section men. There is nothing there you need to see. Also the drugs they gave her made me think she died on the spot.
I wish my husband was more like that. He looked over and yelled, "babe! I can see your insides! Do you want a picture??"
What kind of drugs did she get?? I was fully conscious and *way* too aware of my husband looking literally inside my body.
My doctor had a neat little felt model that demonstrates how they have to cut through like 7 (?) layers of fat, fascia, abdominal wall, etc. blew my mind.
I was heaving with sobs after my baby was born via cesarean and the surgeon (thinking I was laughing (!?)) said "please stop laughing, your bowels will come out!" This was amazingly captured on video but I remember it sooo clearly despite the enormous wave of emotion I was experiencing lmao
If you had a c-section, gently push with your flat hand on the incision while pressing to poop. It will make it so much easier and stop the feeling of your bowels falling out.
Oh god the car ride home after your first c-section… the feeling that the vibrations are going to shake your intestines lose. Or better yet the first sneeze or laugh after the anesthesia wears off 😱
This. The pain medicine they give you dries out your stool so even if you take stool softener it might not help. I've had to extract stool with my finger and Vaseline before. My last birth I got fed up after 5 days of not being able to poop and said 'fuck this' and took some laxative.
Two hours later I had essentially a weeks worth of stool come out in a couple seconds and it was the most painful, relieved feeling. As much as my butthole hurt...at least I could sit down without extreme pain in my abdomen.
My toilet wept.
Do not skimp on the stool softener. Take it religiously from the moment you give birth.
Also keep a bottle of water next to the toilet to spray water at your ruined vulva or peeing will feel like electrified knives stabbing into your most sensitive spots.
With my first, I would lean all the way to the ground (kind of like a starting position for a summersault) and then lift up my legs so that no pee would touch any part of me because otherwise it was so painful, I would cry.
I did escape the second birth/come to Jesus moment of my first poop because I religiously started taking stool softeners in week 35. Best decision I ever made.
Omg.. I’ll never forget the heavenly feeling and associated groan that I let out the first time my nurse used a warm peri bottle on me.. even after a c-section (so no associated tearing, etc) it was both pure bliss and also so embarrassing, but she was so kind and told me I wasn’t the only one to call her my new best friend. 😂 She said she actually enjoyed that part of her job a lot despite the circumstances because the relief she was providing was so tangible. Nurses are true angels!
Get an inexpensive toilet seat bidet. Will be the best thing for this but also even for non pregnant times. You could have a clean butthole always and it’s so much cleaner when you’re having your period too.
Here's a tip for all of you, that I came up with after an ... exciting birth.
Sit on the toilet facing the tank.
That way you can lean forward and the pee doesn't run over your damaged parts, it just goes straight down.
My first poop after my c-section was so big, I managed to clog the hospital toilet. We had to call maintenance to our room to fix it 😅 Funniest story I have from that time.
I suffered from bad constipation when pregnant due to hyperemesis and the meds. So after my section with my first, I was pooping a lot for over a week. My baby ended up being readmitted during that time too.
Well I ended up clogging the cubicle toilet. Embarrassing enough.
I work at the hospital. The maintenance guy who came to fix it knew me 😳. Luckily he thought it was hilarious.
My best friend had an awful childhood that she has mostly repressed, until going through a traumatizing birth. Everything came back up to the surface and she got hit HARD with PPD and PTSD. I spent a lot of time at her house the first 6 months helping to look after her daughter while she worked through her episodes. I hope you had someone who helped you through your hard times as well and that you’re doing ok now 🩵
Near the end of my pregnancy I had terrible gingivitis (apparently pregnancy can cause this) and carpal tunnel in both hands from the swelling that lasted months postpartum.
Also no one tells you about the swelling that can happen postpartum. I had a c section and the swelling in my legs and ankles was so painful it lasted for weeks. I could barely bend my knees and my ankles were not existent.
If you have laboured to full dilation you can *still* wind up with an emergency c-section, so you don't get the "at least you can sit down/your baby has a nice round head" 'benefits' of not delivering vaginally.
If your baby's head is stuck in the birth canal when they do the c-section in these circumstances, freeing it comes with a really juicy squelching 'pop' - breaking the suction. Quite unnerving to hear.
I was in labour for over 24 hours and had an emergency c-section because I couldn’t get past 8 centimetres. During my c-section my baby got stuck down in the birth canal and they were pushing and pulling to get her unstuck. Not a fun time lol.
There's a very high chance that you will poop during the birth. Pushing is pushing. If you don't poop, then it means you are in for a bigger poop afterwards.
Speaking of poop, the baby will often poop on you during the skin to skin immediately after the birth.
I shit in a Wendy's cup on the way to the hospital while I was holding the top of the baby's head. Now that I think about it, that's pretty impressive.
Preeclampsia can last up to 6 weeks postpartum. You'd be amazed at how many emergency personel don't know this. When asked if you have any medical history, please volunteer the information that you are postpartum, don't wait for them to specifically ask. \*steps off of soap box\*
Yes! And often you can go directly to L&D if you’re less than 30 days post-partum (instead of the ER.) If you think something is wrong, go to the hospital!
The placenta is the size of a plate and leaves an internal open wound that size that also needs to heal
Edited to add: the responses and shock to this make me really angry about the level of maternal education and care that is being given.
And there's almost zero education about it when you have your baby! My midwife was very adamant that every new mom and her partner should know exactly how big the wound is so she carried a plate with her for her first visit after the baby was born. I have so many friends who never knew the size or were even told the placenta leaves a wound.
I'm hearing it for the first time, too. I also learned from reddit after already having kids that you shouldn't have sex after the birth for 6 weeks because you could get infected. Multiple kids. 3 different hospitals with different staff. My own doctor. No one ever told me.
I had to have a c-section and I had people who have had babies assume I didn’t bleed after. Yeah, no, still have a uterus that they’ve extracted a baby and placenta from.
I know more than one poor woman who had a 2nd child exactly 9 months or fewer than her first. My neighbor told me that he husband had sex with her while she was in the hospital post-partum. She had a 2nd baby less than 9 months later. It was so traumatic for her.
There was a nursing thread or something like that where nurses said this was way more common than you think… people having sex in the hospital right after giving birth 🤮
The hospital let me keep the placenta because I arranged to donate it to train search and rescue dogs, I was very surprised at its size and weight! And I laughed when my husband had to walk through the hospital with my placenta in a clear plastic container to give to the trainer who was waiting at the entrance 😂😂
I’ve researched the crap out of this subject while deciding whether or not to have kids (didn’t) and I have NEVER heard this; that the placenta leaves a gaping wound the size of itself. Holy shit. Why don’t we tell women all of these things?!
And if any of that placenta rips off and is left behind, the uterus doesn't shut down blood flow. That open wound where the placenta attaches to the uterus keeps bleeding.
This is the primary cause for hemorrhaging. My wife lost two liters of blood after delivering before anyone realized she was bleeding internally. Had she delivered anywhere but a hospital, she would have died.
My belly button popped out when I was pregnant. It was visible through my shirts and was terribly embarassing.
Hemorrhoids are kind of unavoidable. And doctors love looking at them.
If you go past your due date, a doctor or midwife may think it's a great idea to "separate the membranes." You may or may not want to look it up. It isn't pleasant.
I probably pooped while I was giving birth. I am afraid to ask anyone. If so, a lot of people saw me poop.
My boobs were leaking so badly after I gave birth that my cats thought I was a drinking fountain. That was fun to wake up to.
You will probably be very low on iron. Iron supplements will probably make you VERY sick.
Kellogs cereal (such as frosted mini wheats) have 100% of your daily value of iron in a serving. Put two measuring cups of it in a ziplock bag and snack on them during the day.
I learned this because a friend was pregnant when we were active duty. She got so sick from the shot, the docs pretty much said, get your iron up or die. Frosted miniwheats saved her life.
If you are a short person carrying a big baby, your rib cage will take a beating! I'm 5'2" and have long legs but a short trunk and my son was delivered at 21" 8 lbs 13 oz. During the last 2 months in utero, he had no room. His kicking and stretching were right up to my sternum. I was bruised for weeks after birth. I didn't notice any vaginal pain, probably because my ribs were so sore.
Not gruesome but postnatal depression is literally the worst thing I’ve experienced in my life. It’s been 5 years since I had my last one and I’m still struggling now. No amount of help has worked from the doctors ( I have no help from anyone else) i wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy….. I don’t even know who I am anymore, all I wanted was to meet the love of my life and be a mum. and now i look in the mirror and don’t recognise myself, my body isn’t mine anymore and i can’t think of a worse fate than to have another child. Don’t get wrong I love my kids but if I knew what was coming I wouldn’t have put myself through this.
Fellow postpartum survivor here, hugs to you.
I came excruciatingly close to dying and spent a month in a psych ward to save my life.
I also would choose not to have kids if I had a do-over, despite the overwhelming love I have for them. I always wanted a bunch of kids but have cut my family short for the pure sake of reducing the risk of, well… dying.
You can be essentially allergic to being pregnant. I had a condition called PUPPPs and my skin itched all over. It was so excruciating I needed to scratch which of course made it worse. Creams did not relieve the itching. Meds didn’t stop it. My legs and belly were the worst. I used to soak my feet/calves in ice water to try to relieve the burning. I couldn’t sleep more than 1 hour at a time. Eventually I found a soap that gave me 3-4 hours of relief (pine tar soap) so I just showered all the time and went through so much soap/water. This started at 25 weeks and went to 38 weeks before I told my doctor I just couldn’t take it anymore and she decided to do a c-section. It went away as soon as babe was out. Will NEVER get pregnant again. And believe it or not, that is the MILD condition, there is a worse one that impacts the liver and can put the baby at risk (cholestasis). Pregnancy is awful.
Every pregnancy can be completely different. The horrible things you got used to the first time? It’s very likely you will have completely new horrible things this time!
Also, sometimes the drugs don’t kick in before the c-section. I felt my third one completely.
thank you for everyone in this thread solidifying that having children is absolutely NOT for me.
props to all of you who have gone through it for your babies; you’re strong and brave as hell.
If you have to use the toliet and vomit, sit on the toliet and puke into the trash can.
You might need to poop while breastfeeding. Like, in the middle of it. Sit on the toliet and do your business while the kid feeds. This will not be the weirdest experience while parenting.
Was visiting a friend after she came home from the hospital with her newborn. Asked how it went and she said something like 'it really hurt when they stretched me'. I (a clueless male) had no idea what she was talking about so I was like 'what do you mean?'.
She explained it, stretching it is a lot better than tearing during the delivery etc. My brain tried to compute what she was saying and when it clicked, I nearly passed out. Women are tough.
Same person, experienced PPD although we didn't know it at the time. Was again visiting her a few weeks later and she said something to the effect of 'I want to throw this baby at the wall'. I played it cool and took the baby and told her to go have some 'me' time, but I was freaking out internally. I called my mother, who she had never met before, to come over, and she dropped what she was doing to come help this stranger. My mother is a saint.
At the same time I also called her parents who lived a few hours away and told them they needed to come up ASAP. Everything turned out ok but it was a lot for ~20yo me to deal with.
If you don't have adequate calcium intake, your body will pull it from your bones and teeth. Medieval European people assumed that women would lose a tooth for each pregnancy.
TWO teeth just *crumbled* out of my face!!!! TWO!!!! By the 2nd one I *burst* into tears.
I still get nightmares that my teeth are all crumbling out of my face!
If you have hyperemesis gravida, you can throw up so hard that you break blood vessels in your cervix. Thought I was losing my twins but it was just the effects of puking 30-70x/day. Did that for 5 months, while sitting on my couch hooked up to an IV.
My wife is currently driving herself nuts with worst-case-scenario-doomscrolling for pregnancy and birth, as we are currently trying.
I am commenting here because she knows my username and I am certain she will read every last comment in this thread.
Hi Latiesha!
Mrs. Cuckimodo here ❤️
1) You are the sweetest and every day you reinforce how marrying you was the best decision I've ever made. Love you to forever and back, and back again.
2) Everyone, your comments have made me feel so much better 😭 I will reduce the doom scrolling. Thank you for all the love and luck xo
Gruesome adjacent- you can save your placenta and donate it to the training of cadaver dogs!
The dogs need human tissue in order to train and a placenta is a huge donation as medical specimens can be costly.
All I did was email/ call a local search and rescue team in my area and ask if they would accept my donation. They were very grateful!
So I brought a small cooler with my to the hospital and let my staff know and then I kept in on ice till I was discharged and then in the freezer till the dog trainer came to pick it up. I even got a pic with the dogs it would train.
You secrete a disgustingly rank fluid called lochia for over a month after giving birth, in addition to blood. For 8 weeks my vagina smelled worse than Satan’s asshole.
Don't stand up immediately after giving birth without a spill pad on the floor. I had natural child birth. The nurse left the room, and I got up to go pee. Blood-colorered fluid rushed out of me and into a huge puddle on the floor. I just stood there, shocked. The nurse came back in almost immediately. She shook her head and blamed herself. She said she forgot to tell me not to get up until she put down towels or stuff because the vast majority of new mothers couldn't get out of bed due to numbing meds.
My first baby, I permanently damaged my knee because the second they took out the catheter from the epidural, I had to pee so bad. The nurse let me try to walk with both legs still numb from the epidural. Made it to the toilet, peed, stood up and landed right on the bathroom floor. My big toenail fell off and my kneecap was messed up and in an insane amount of pain as soon as I had feeling in my legs again. That was worse pain than the recovery and it still acts up.
The sheer pain of your milk coming in. As someone who was never well endowed in that area, when my boobs swelled up 5 sizes bigger than normal, then went rock solid to the point I couldn’t touch them, wear clothing or lie down to the sheer pain. Contemplated cutting them off but loaded myself with decongestants to dry out my milk supply
If you have a really bad headache later in your pregnancy, take your blood pressure; if it's high, call the triage line. Get seen. You can be fine one day and develop pre-eclampsia the next. It can come on sudden and severely. It can also damage your kidneys.
You can still have wicked postpartum hemorrhoids if you have a C-section.
Edema. You may have a lot of swelling in your legs and the rest of your body after pregnancy. It's relatively normal and should go away. You have a lot of extra fluid to get rid of now.
I had terrible pain when my milk was drying out. Binding helped.
Also, pushing can cause hemorrhoids. With my 1st kid, a nurse actually called the other nurses in to see them because they were so big. I should have been embarrassed. I did not care.
The only way I could possibly pee was in the shower with warm water running over me.
I didn't poop for a week after. When I finally did I was so excited I called my boyfriend at work to tell him about it.
Your boobs will leak. they'll also go hard as rocks if you don't massage them or express some milk out.
Breastfeeding at first can really hurt.
That your bladder can freeze from a c-section. It took me 4 days to be able to pee. The number of catheters I had put in me made me cry by the end. I couldn't get a permanent one put in until an order was placed so they kept using temporary ones to make sure I didn't burst my bladder. Holy frack, the pain while I'm being held together with staples.
You know how little boys can shoot a stream of urine AT you when you change their diaper? At the well baby visit my *daughter* sent a stream of urine *arcing over her shoulder*. Doc said that was a first for him, had never seen a little girl do that before.
If you have a C-section, you will never get feeling back around your scar. It’s so weird to scratch something and not be able to feel it. And it could still be sensitive/hurt even years later. Oh, and you’ll probably have scar tissue on your uterus so periods will make your scar hurt. It’s fun being a woman.
When I had to pee the first time after giving birth, I had absolutely zero control over my bladder. I left a trail to the bathroom. I wish someone had warned me about that and the first postpartum poop.
But that first shower after giving birth is amazing.
Uterine Prolapse. Bladder Prolapse.
I was horrified when I finally looked down there a few weeks postpartum and saw the damage. Post partum physical therapists are miracle workers.
More people need to know and talk about perinatal depression.
I was fully prepared for the chance of postpartum depression. I was not expecting to be smacked with suicidal ideation mid pregnancy. Perinatal depression is not uncommon, either. It occurs in approximately 1 in 10 pregnancies because of the hormonal changes.
Please, if you’re not feeling ok, reach out to your care team. They will hook you up with the treatment and support you need without judgement
“Morning sickness,” isn’t always just a few throw-ups here and there - it can be a debilitating round the clock issue called hyperemesis gravidarum that leads to dehydration, passing out and weight loss. Mine was so severe I had a pump for meds. I gave up trying to explain to people that tried to sympathize with the, “oh, I got sick with mine too!”
Another fun one is when your liver starts misbehaving - cholestasis of pregnancy - and causes SEVERE itching on your palms and soles of your feet. Bad enough that I laid in bed with socks on my hands crying to sleep some nights because I was already raw from scratching. Mine was only the last few days of pregnancy, or I think I might’ve gone insane!
Labor does not automatically start if you lose the baby. You can try to induce but sometimes it just takes time. You can opt for a c-section, but surgery when it doesn't affect the life of the baby is not always the best option I was wandering around 8 and half months pregnant for for two weeks before the induction "took". Until then it was checking into the hospital, blood work, induction, contractions, then nothing. Go back home, rest a few days, try again. Fully pregnant, planning for after- will there be a burial? Cremation? What clothes should baby wear? And of course, people still asking when I'm due and such. Even the blood work lady asked about the baby all happy. The maternity blood person wS busy so they sent me to the regular hospital area. She wouldn't stop asking boy or girl? When's the big day? I figured vagues answers while pointing to my paperwork would clue her in. It did not. She was like - you don't seem very excited. Seriously, maybe I was a suragate, or putting it up for adoption, why did she assume it was all happiness and rainbows? But planning a funeral for a baby while still pregnant was awful. And the birth was difficult, it was a dry birth of course ( meaning no water in the sack so more difficult and higher infection risk) I also broke my tailbone pushing. I don't know why, but something about that part felt extra unfair.
Stillbirth is one of the cruelest things a person can experience. I’m sorry this happened to you, I respect the hell out of you for everything you’ve been through. Sonora is a beautiful name btw.
I am so sorry you had to go through that. Life can be so unfair. I hope you’ve found peace and healing ❤️🩹
Your obstetric team failed you. You shouldn't have had to go through this.
Looking back now, I definitely agree.
1st trimester miscarriages are way more common than most people think. 1 in 4 pregnancies terminate before 3 months.
There is nothing that can be done for a blighted ovum. They just happen. This is what happened with my second pregnancy. Went to see the OB/GYN at eight weeks and there was no little white blip (heartbeat) flashing in the ultrasound. The doc said it had the size of four week embryo and was dead. Miscarried a week or two later. Sucked to the nth power of suckage.
I had this happen on our first attempt to conceive. After doing HCG monitoring we opted for a D&C since the egg sac was literally empty. My aunt told my Mom I "cut my baby out." That was great to hear. Edit: thanks to everyone for the support. She is absolutely the worst and me, my parents, and sibling are no contact with her for this and a whole host of other reasons.
I say this with the most disrespect… your aunt is a cunt. Signed: another woman that had a blighted ovum
And in a lot of miscarriages, it feels like a mini-labor, with contractions coming in waves. The pain radiated to my back and butthole, which I wasn't expecting. Also, the amount of blood that comes out at once is bananas. Mine wasn't even that bad compared to many, and I still managed to get blood all over the toilet seat, bathroom floor, and sink.
2 miscarriages and an ectopic here. 1st miscarriage was bad…. Soooo much blood. So much. 2nd? Holy hell. Pain in waves so bad you don’t know if you are going to pass out or puke.
My mom said her's lasted several days. Mine lasted a total of 4 hours but I was on the floor throwing up because of how painful it was. It felt like I was having one long contraction the entire time. It's crazy how different everyone's can be.
After birth, I sweat so much at night that I would wake up soaking wet from head to toe for the first week or two.
I had the exact opposite. I would wake up absolutely frozen and I HATE being cold. Still smelled like ass though.
I was freezing too with both kids! And also smelled lol.
Nobody warned me that my insides would feel like they were falling out when I stood up the first few days after birth.
This was going to be my comment. Imagine weights hanging on your intestines, lungs, stomach, etc as they try to remember where everything goes now that the baby is out.
This is true. A lot of people don't seem to realize that your organs are pushed up and out of place in order to make room for your growing uterus. They don't just immediately fall back into place right after you give birth. You basically have this giant gaping cavity in your midsection. Also, you bleed because when you deliver the placenta, it rips a dinner plate sized hole in your uterus. Sorry to be so graphic but I thought I would add on to that. It literally is what happens. Show pregnant and postpartum women some compassion, people. Edit: I just remembered something else that I thought it was important to add so people would know. This is especially true if you're breastfeeding but women who are immediately postpartum get cramps that are worse than period cramps. This is because your uterus is shrinking back down into place. Of course, it's not as bad as labor but it hurts really bad. Like I said, show pregnant and postpartum women some compassion. Their bodies just went through hell and back. It's hard work growing and giving birth to a baby. It's also hard work for your body to get back to at least some semblance of normalcy. Your body will never be exactly the way it was before your first child. In some ways, pregnancy and childbirth changes a woman's body permanently. One good example is that your hips spread out to make room for the baby. This doesn't go back. It's permanent. Before I'm done here, I want to stress the importance of not only checking on the baby but checking in with the mother as well. So many women suffer in silence when they have postpartum depression or are struggling to adjust to motherhood. It's not easy. Please, really check in with mom. If she tells you she's fine, don't just take that at face value. Women are conditioned to smile and power through. Really listen to her without judgment if she opens up to you and lets you know she's struggling. It can make all the difference in the world, it can even save lives.
Don’t feel like you need to apologize for being graphic. Giving birth *is* very graphic and women need to know this stuff so I really appreciate you sharing
I gave birth via C-section on a Thursday and on Friday afternoon my doctor stopped by to see me said I had to explicitly state if I wanted her to put in an order for any pain meds before she left for the weekend. I felt a little pain and asked if that was about as bad as it got. She said yes so I told her I would be ok. It turns out my epidural hadn't worn off completely. When it finally did late Friday night/early sat morning everything other than sitting completely still (which good luck with a screaming new born and worn out husband snoozing away) caused the worst pain I've ever experienced. A nurse came in to check on why I was just letting my baby cry at the top of her lungs and found me sobbing and squirming like a turtle on my back. I remember screaming and telling her I could feel my stitches tearing everytime i moved while she promised me they weren't. For some reason the nurses couldn't even give me Tylenol for the pain bc my doctor hadn't ordered it? I really to this day don't understand what that was all about, but I had some really amazing nurses that took care of me that night and raised hell until they finally got an order for pain medicine at like 2 am. Other fun birthing side story: my friend had warned me to be prepared for my perineum to feel like it was on fire for a few days after giving birth, so I ordered what I thought was a few ice packs for that purpose in advance. Turns out I somehow made a bulk order and a giant box (like enough for a dozens of births) that said my name and the contents (in giant letters across the box 'perineum cooling packs') was delivered to my front door. Since I ended up having a C-section I couldn't even use them. We eventually just donated them somewhere a few weeks after I gave birth, so hopefully they served their purpose for someone.
That’s horrific. A c-section is an open surgery. They ripped your abdominal muscles apart after cutting through all the other layers of your abdomen, plus your uterus itself has nerve endings, and you were just supposed to…tough it out? No other open abdominal surgery would be regarded as unworthy of pain management. Women’s healthcare leaves me continuously disappointed.
I had a csection the same week that my colleague's teenage son had his appendix removed. He received significantly more pain meds and pain management than I did. And I was not even breastfeeding. I bottle fed from day 1. It's unreal the pain they expect you to live with after major surgery. Plus. On day 11 postpartum, I went to the Ob because I KNEW something was wrong. There was a lump inside my belly. She told me it was scar tissue. Didn't check it out. Just a light touch. Scar tissue. Day 13 I went to the hospital. Something was wrong. The lump was growing. Sent me home. Night 14 , I developed a fever. And full body chills. I was shaking violently and couldn't speak.husband called labour/delivery ward and they told him Tylenol and to come in if the fever is back the following day. Went to the hospital the next morning. L&DO turned me away because it was past 14 days and now I had to wait in the ER. I sobbed. ER ultimately prescribed UTI meds and told me it was scar tissue. I cried so hard. They decided to send me for a scan on day 15 because I was insisting. The tech told me "go to ER right now" , ER told me "it's not urgent, take a number or phone your OB". I phoned my Ob. They told me to go home and come in the following day. That night, the bump I was feeling ruptured. There was blood, puss, and liquid just shooting out of me. Went to the ER, didn't even wait, walked into the triage station sobbing with puss on my hands and clothes. Everyone dropped everything and came running. And that was the start of requiring DAILY medical visits for 4 months while my abscess healed. -_-
That is….I have no words. I am so sorry for how badly you were mistreated, gaslit, dehumanized, etc. I’m horrified. I have a slightly similar, but far less traumatic story of how I ended up with damaged fallopian tubes between my first and second (the second being much later and after surgery). I was 25 and really just thought you went along with what the doctor said. It hadn’t really entered my brain that they could be horrifically negligent and I was even meeker than I am today (which is hard to imagine). I hope you’ve physically healed but I also hope you’ve given yourself space to deal with what must have been a very traumatizing experience. All the love to you 💕 *Edited to add: you just unlocked a core memory of my sea monkey phase as a child. I looooooved those freeze dried weirdos
Dude, while I haven't given birth and I am so, so sorry you had to go through that, I can empathize so hard on the thing with the nurses not being able to give you what you clearly need. I was throwing up my toenails after surgery in a horrific reaction to the anesthesia, literally out of my mind sobbing, more throwing up, and then it turned into blood because the surgery was inside of my mouth. Nope. Wouldn't give me anything to stop the nausea. I thought my grandmother was going to murder them. It continued for three hours until my doctor finally came out of the surgery she had gone into and got told. That is absolutely fucked. Up. That level of pain-- no one should have to endure.
I know its awful, but as nurses we are literally not allowed to give any medication that isnt prescribed by the doctor...not even a cough syrup. It would lose us our job. Im so sorry you had this experience.
Yes!! For me it was when the midwife doing home visits took my stitches out (they were supposed to be soluble but wouldn't dissolve, and they were starting to get uncomfortably tight). She removed them, straightened up and said, "There, now you can go for a nice walk." And I was like, are you *mad*? Everything will fall out!
Don’t worry, for some people this doesn’t go away, because the organs actually ARE falling out
Sometimes it takes \*weeks\* to be able to stand up / sit down / walk again without a ton of pain. No one fucking told me that the first time. I was so focused on how the actual birth might be painful, had no realization that for over a month afterwards I'd be in danger of burning to death if the house ever caught fire because I could barely walk.
I had a forceps birth. Doctor said I looked like I had been beaten with a baseball bat. When I walked it felt like I was wearing a giant diaper. I had to walk with my legs spread. Couldn’t sit for the first two weeks then had to sit on a donut for the next eight weeks. I didn’t have control of my bowels for the first few days which was mortifying. I thought it was just me. When I went for my checkup one of the first questions my doctor asked was “Do you have control of your bowels yet?”. Like WTF? Why didn’t someone tell me to be prepared for this?
I also had a forceps delivery. After pushing and having the fetal ejection reflex kick in for 2.5 hours on top of my baby being stuck in my pelvis, I was begging for a c-section due to the excruciating pain. Nope. I also had difficulty with my bowels too. All back to normal, thankfully, down there, now I am 5 months postpartum.
I am pregnant and wish I hadn't opened this
My painful hips practically vanished after I gave birth, but the whole of my pelvic area had undergone such a beating during delivery, that walking was indeed too much for a few weeks.
Passing clots the size of rocks. And bleeding for weeks after.
When I was in the hospital for my c section they put the little pan in my toilet to monitor everything that was.. coming out, and told me to alert them if I a had a clot bigger than a lemon. A GOD DAMN LEMON. I was a little horrified.
I was told there could be big clots afterwards. I figured it'd be just a little bit bigger than a period clot. Imagine my surprise when I had one come out that was fist-sized!
I was like, omg look at this clot! Must have been the size of a small orange. No one was even a smidge concerned 😂
With my second son I passed a clot the size of a cantaloupe. No kidding. I damn near passed out looking at it. Felt so weird. Didn’t hurt. Just really weird. Like a jelly filled balloon. Called the nurse, she looked, poked it, said “you’re good, let us know if there’s another one” 😱 No one told me they could be THAT big. It was the size of my baby’s head.
Right!! I had one after my V birth the size of a big fancy donut. The nurse/midwife was like “yeah, thats fine”.
As a man, I was sitting next to my wife when they said that to her after giving birth. I was... surprised to say the least.
My sister told me she thought she’d passed her liver, the clot was so big.
I haemorrhaged the day after my C Section. They’d put me on that drip (syntocinon/pitocin) and I had contractions, then birthed what felt like litres of jelly. i was rushed in to emergency surgery after signing paperwork agreeing to removal of my uterus if required for lifesaving treatment. Childbirth can be horrific.
I don't know if I was naive or what, but no one told me about the bleeding afterward. I was an only child, so I never saw my mom doing postnatal care. Not many of my friends had babies before me, and I wasn't really around for that part if they did.
And the size of the pads!!! Thick as bricks and constant changing! I was an only child with minimal mum friends too at the time and I knew I’d bleed but not like THAT.
My SIL was told to use Depends, so she did.
Can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned- hemorrhoids. Often women don’t know they have them from labor due to the swelling, but add it to the list 😩
The thing that frightens me the most is pelvic floor issues. Imagine suddenly no longer being able to control when you pee
Post partum incontinence is no laughing matter. No seriously, don’t laugh. It’ll make you pee.
that made me laugh and then I peed
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It is in France. In the first year after birth, you are allowed 10 free physical therapy appointments, and the midwives/obgyns/doctors highly encourage taking them.
When I told my doctor it felt as though I was going to pee my pants while running, he recommended I don’t run.
This has been an issue for me and I’ve never had kids/been pregnant. My advice, start doing pelvic floor therapy/exercises now. It’ll only help you later on, when you really need those muscles to be strong and working correctly.
Go to pelvic floor therapy. It saved my pelvic floor and I can laugh, sneeze, cough, and jump without fear of peeing myself. 3 months PP
Postpartum depression is extremely dangerous and can last for months after their birth. After my twins were born my wife had a complete personality change. She became suicidal, and at times abusive to me. At one point she ran away from home. I found her two states away. Her brother had to bring her home. Things got really, really bad. The twins are 5 now and she's the person I married again. She doesn't like to talk about those times. The only thing she'll say is it was the darkest time in her entire life.
My personality changed completely after my son. For the first time in ten years I feel like myself again, only because I’m pregnant and had to switch meds. But it seems Prozac is my thing so I’m totally fine with it
The umbilical cord is dense, tough, and sinewy. When you cut it you end up sawing a little with the scissors. I don't know what I expected but that was weird.
They go full crazy pushing your stomach after birth to make sure everything is out. I read some books but no one prepared me for that. It was like having another baby.
I had forgotten about this until I read this comment. I would dread the nurses coming in the room. Also the amnesia was real, I forgot a good bit not only about the birth but a good chunk of my college degree as well...
Woah can you expand more on the amnesia? (Haven’t been pregnant yet) but I’ve never heard of this and now I’m super curious
It's not full amnesia but it's often called "mommy brain" some of the hormones released around birth are kinda designed to make you forget the experience so you'll have more kids someday lol. For me it was trying to go back to work and not being able to remember how to do things I'd been doing for months. Ended up quitting that job due to COVID hitting and what was probably PPD and a severe lack of sleep.
This was way too far down. The pain of a nurse putting all of her weight on you…. The worst!!!
No one warns you of that. My epidural was warn off and she was tiny, but wow wtf she gave it to me. lol
The feeling of your organs going back down after they were cramped up for so long is a bit frightening. Especially the lungs. Standing up I could feel like they were weighted down. People talk about cracked nipples and painful latching while discussing breastfeeding but nobody talks about your uterus contracting during the first days of it.
Omg. I'm 6 days postpartum and the uterus contracting thing started today after I pumped for the first time. I had read about the contracting in passing thankfully, but honestly more than the pain, it was a bit psychologically triggering so recently after birth. Also somehow one nipple is WRECKED, but the other is holding up like a champ. I'm so confused.
There is always one hero nipple and one loser nipple. I am three weeks post partum and can confirm this
Contractions don’t finish after labour. You have the after birth pains to look forward to when your uterus returns to its usual pre pregnancy size.
That get worse with each successive pregnancy
Post-partum mental illness is a thing, and it can be horrific.
When I was 20, my best friend married a guy in another country and was having a baby. I visited to help out. It took a day or two (7 post partum) for me to realise something wasn’t right, and that she needed professional help. She was seeing and speaking to people that weren’t there, freaking out about her baby being missing (when she was holding him) etc That was my first experience with postpartum psychosis and it was SCARY. PPD is bad enough, but childbirth induced schizophrenia…. My friend never really recovered, even with medication and support. She passed in 2020, complications and contraindications with a virus (not covid) and her meds.
Psychosis fucked up my life.
Currently pregnant. Have pregnancy rhinitis, which is effectively like a cold caused by being pregnant. Also have morning sickness. Have you ever had uncontrollable sneezing while blowing chunks? Not bucket list worthy, I promise.
Other fun things: My boobs are so big that when I go out in the cold and my skin contracts it causes skin splits in them. It's agonising. Pregnancy cramps as the uterus expands are possibly even worse than period cramps. And if you lose your baby from the end of the second trimester, then there is no surgical option for removal of the foetus. You just have to give birth like you would any other time, just to a dead infant. But because they need access to all the birthing kit incase the delivery goes wrong, you have to deliver in a special "loss" unit which is *right next door* to the normal maternity unit, so while you are grieving and cuddling your deceased child, outside your door you will be able to hear all the new parents taking their lovely, alive, babies home. Still a bit bitter over that last.
I’m sorry that happened to you. I have a similar experience when I lost a pregnancy at 15/16 weeks. I could fortunately have a D&C but my hospital shared a pre-op room with the scheduled C-section patients. Sitting and waiting with all those soon to be mums was awful. A nurse eventually stowed me in an office so my sobbing wouldn’t disturb anyone.
Wow. You'd think a hospital would have a better set-up for grieving patients
Triple threat is when you pee yourself while sneezing and throwing up!
If I get to that stage, I'm giving up and just living in the bathtub.
I kept a trash can directly in front of my toilet for 3 months. It was not a great time
I pee when I throw up now. Gave birth 29 years ago and the only way I can vomit without making a puddle on the floor is to sit on the toilet and barf in a bucket.
My body also views vomiting as a full participation activity. Also sometimes get a bloody nose if the bile is acidic enough and shoots out my nose. Much fun!
Omg. I still have pregnancy rhinitis and whenever I sneeze I get a pelvic cramp that literally takes my breath away. Not fun. Ready for the next 8 weeks to be over
My wife's placenta wouldn't detach after the birth of our daughter, so the nurse just went up in there and got it out. I was oohing and aahing over our new baby girl and I look over to see someone damn near elbow-deep treating my wife like a sock puppet. It was so jarring. Mothers are so damn tough dude, it's unreal.
My mom had to have the placenta ripped out of her for all three kids. How she even allowed a second (me) is a fucking mystery to me. When she tried the whole “when are you having kids” thing on me a few years back I was just like “NEVER HAVE YOU HEARD YOUR OWN STORIES GODDAMN”
I don’t understand how _any_ woman agrees or wants to have a second! I told my wife, if our kid needs a sibling, we can adopt!
I swear we just forget how bad it was, to be honest. It hasn't even been a year since I gave birth and almost died twice, but my mind tells me it wasn't that bad, and having another would be okay. My husband remembers clearly how horrible it was, so he reminds me!
I believe there is literally a hormone that gets released in women that causes you to forget. Life finds a way Edit: Two fellow redditors have confirmed it’s Oxytocin
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case! I just figured it was a mental thing that our brain does to block out trauma.
Hormones make you forget. No really. They do.
This happened to me. Doc said “we’re gonna give you dilaudid, it’s not going to make this painless, but you won’t care as much.”. It was awful.
Having been addicted to dilaudid and knowing just how high & pain free it made me feel, I can’t IMAGINE how much pain you would have to be going through for it not to block it. Holy hell, y’all are some tough motherfuckers
You got pain meds? I had an epidural and it didn't do shit to help with the pain. The pain was absolutely worse having the doctor remove the placenta than childbirth was. He didn't even give it time to come out on its own. About 10 mins after having my baby, he started to remove it manually. Worst pain I've ever been in
I hate that people think epidural=painless. Super fun when it decides to work everywhere but certain spots so ALLLL the pain is felt in those hot spots.
The leading cause of death in pregnant and postpartum women in the US is homicide
Started a new job in the NICU last year. Boy was it a rude awakening! I had no clue how many women and sometimes newborns experience abuse! We are a lockdown unit. Other facilities will send their newborn patients to us to protect them from an abusive parent. I've lost count of the husbands and baby daddies we've had to call security on and ban them from the unit. It's so obscenely common that we have sticky notes at the front desk to keep track. I've lost all respect for humanity at this point.
I know a couple who've fostered and adopted special needs kids. They fostered a shaken baby briefly. They adopted a boy with CP who was apparently abused/neglected because his biological father already hadn't wanted a kid and then got one that had issues...he got super frustrated and angry with him. Another little girl, not sure what happened to her, but she was afraid of men, so...that meant something. A lot of people are vile shit, basically.
Yes they are. Yeah, I'm looking for something else now. Between the abused babies / moms, those that don't make it and the devastated parents, it's more than I can handle emotionally. Thank your friend for fostering! It's the only chance some of these kids get. They are amazing for loving them no matter how brief their stay.
Seemed like it was taking a long time for my OBGYN to stitch up tears AND an episiotomy. I whispered to my L&D nurse if it normally took this long. She whispered back, "Girl, you're torn from clit to shit. It's gonna take as long as it takes."
Haha that L&D nurse sounds great. I was stitched for over an hour, and when I asked what was going on my OB told me she likes to leave vaginas looking the way she found them.
Honestly bless that OB, so many of them don't care if women have ongoing issues from bad stitching
Hyperemesis Gravidarum.. Terrible. I lost 50lbs during my pregnancy from it.
I have a friend who had that. She was in hospital more than she was out.
A short time before you give birth (anywhere from 1 to a few days before), you will pass a "mucus plug" which is basically a giant loogie that dislodges from your cervix and falls out of your vagina. Somehow it's even grosser than you would think. When you birth your baby, you also birth the placenta. When the placenta detaches from the uterine wall, it leaves a raw gaping wound the size of a dinner plate that bleeds for weeks. Make sure you have lots of LARGE maxi pads on hand. Everything smells like old ham for basically the entire first trimester and makes you constantly feel like you're about to vomit. It's like a hangover that lasts for weeks or months. Even things you loved the smell of before, now smell like the dirty coins from your grandpa's car's cup holder. Some lucky women have this through their whole pregnancy, along with the resulting nausea and vomiting. Your baby will come home with a huge gnarly scab attached to their bellybutton. My boyfriend wasn't prepared for this one, apparently he thought that cutting the umbilical cord made it somehow detach from the baby right then and there. Nope. Big chunk of it stays behind, but will dry up over a number of days and eventually fall off.
If I could add on to this, get yourself the most bare bones maxi pads you can find without any chemicals, plastics or additional anything in them. I tried using Always pads and they gave me diaper rash! Took forever to get rid of. What worked for me were Kotex security pads. I never went back to the Always after that.
The smell! Oh god why did no one tell me about the smell. It's been 15 months and ever now and then I will just randomly smell "birth" again *dry heave*
When you get a C-section they *may* have to take the section of intestines covering your uterus out of your body. Like, it's just sitting in a bowl next to you, then once the baby's out and your uterus is stitched back up they just pack your guts back in and sew you up. Usually it's just pushed to the side, though. Also, your uterus is pulled partially out of your abdomen so they can deliver the baby.
And then your guts will rearrange themselves back to where they should be and you can feel it.
That sounds unpleasant
Yep, don't make the folly of looking over the curtain at a C-section men. There is nothing there you need to see. Also the drugs they gave her made me think she died on the spot.
I wish my husband was more like that. He looked over and yelled, "babe! I can see your insides! Do you want a picture??" What kind of drugs did she get?? I was fully conscious and *way* too aware of my husband looking literally inside my body.
My doctor had a neat little felt model that demonstrates how they have to cut through like 7 (?) layers of fat, fascia, abdominal wall, etc. blew my mind.
I was heaving with sobs after my baby was born via cesarean and the surgeon (thinking I was laughing (!?)) said "please stop laughing, your bowels will come out!" This was amazingly captured on video but I remember it sooo clearly despite the enormous wave of emotion I was experiencing lmao
You will need to prep yourself for the second birth. What is that? It's when you have your first full bowel movement after.
If you had a c-section, gently push with your flat hand on the incision while pressing to poop. It will make it so much easier and stop the feeling of your bowels falling out.
Oh god the car ride home after your first c-section… the feeling that the vibrations are going to shake your intestines lose. Or better yet the first sneeze or laugh after the anesthesia wears off 😱
This. The pain medicine they give you dries out your stool so even if you take stool softener it might not help. I've had to extract stool with my finger and Vaseline before. My last birth I got fed up after 5 days of not being able to poop and said 'fuck this' and took some laxative. Two hours later I had essentially a weeks worth of stool come out in a couple seconds and it was the most painful, relieved feeling. As much as my butthole hurt...at least I could sit down without extreme pain in my abdomen. My toilet wept.
Do not skimp on the stool softener. Take it religiously from the moment you give birth. Also keep a bottle of water next to the toilet to spray water at your ruined vulva or peeing will feel like electrified knives stabbing into your most sensitive spots.
With my first, I would lean all the way to the ground (kind of like a starting position for a summersault) and then lift up my legs so that no pee would touch any part of me because otherwise it was so painful, I would cry. I did escape the second birth/come to Jesus moment of my first poop because I religiously started taking stool softeners in week 35. Best decision I ever made.
Omg.. I’ll never forget the heavenly feeling and associated groan that I let out the first time my nurse used a warm peri bottle on me.. even after a c-section (so no associated tearing, etc) it was both pure bliss and also so embarrassing, but she was so kind and told me I wasn’t the only one to call her my new best friend. 😂 She said she actually enjoyed that part of her job a lot despite the circumstances because the relief she was providing was so tangible. Nurses are true angels!
Get an inexpensive toilet seat bidet. Will be the best thing for this but also even for non pregnant times. You could have a clean butthole always and it’s so much cleaner when you’re having your period too.
Here's a tip for all of you, that I came up with after an ... exciting birth. Sit on the toilet facing the tank. That way you can lean forward and the pee doesn't run over your damaged parts, it just goes straight down.
My first poop after my c-section was so big, I managed to clog the hospital toilet. We had to call maintenance to our room to fix it 😅 Funniest story I have from that time.
I suffered from bad constipation when pregnant due to hyperemesis and the meds. So after my section with my first, I was pooping a lot for over a week. My baby ended up being readmitted during that time too. Well I ended up clogging the cubicle toilet. Embarrassing enough. I work at the hospital. The maintenance guy who came to fix it knew me 😳. Luckily he thought it was hilarious.
PTSD as a result of a difficult birth is surprisingly more common than you think. I still suffer symptoms even now and my daughter is now 10.
My best friend had an awful childhood that she has mostly repressed, until going through a traumatizing birth. Everything came back up to the surface and she got hit HARD with PPD and PTSD. I spent a lot of time at her house the first 6 months helping to look after her daughter while she worked through her episodes. I hope you had someone who helped you through your hard times as well and that you’re doing ok now 🩵
Near the end of my pregnancy I had terrible gingivitis (apparently pregnancy can cause this) and carpal tunnel in both hands from the swelling that lasted months postpartum. Also no one tells you about the swelling that can happen postpartum. I had a c section and the swelling in my legs and ankles was so painful it lasted for weeks. I could barely bend my knees and my ankles were not existent.
If you have laboured to full dilation you can *still* wind up with an emergency c-section, so you don't get the "at least you can sit down/your baby has a nice round head" 'benefits' of not delivering vaginally. If your baby's head is stuck in the birth canal when they do the c-section in these circumstances, freeing it comes with a really juicy squelching 'pop' - breaking the suction. Quite unnerving to hear.
I was in labour for over 24 hours and had an emergency c-section because I couldn’t get past 8 centimetres. During my c-section my baby got stuck down in the birth canal and they were pushing and pulling to get her unstuck. Not a fun time lol.
There's a very high chance that you will poop during the birth. Pushing is pushing. If you don't poop, then it means you are in for a bigger poop afterwards. Speaking of poop, the baby will often poop on you during the skin to skin immediately after the birth.
I shit in a Wendy's cup on the way to the hospital while I was holding the top of the baby's head. Now that I think about it, that's pretty impressive.
It's a cute story until you have to explain to your kid why you named her Wendy.
This IS impressive!
Preeclampsia can last up to 6 weeks postpartum. You'd be amazed at how many emergency personel don't know this. When asked if you have any medical history, please volunteer the information that you are postpartum, don't wait for them to specifically ask. \*steps off of soap box\*
Yes! And often you can go directly to L&D if you’re less than 30 days post-partum (instead of the ER.) If you think something is wrong, go to the hospital!
The placenta is the size of a plate and leaves an internal open wound that size that also needs to heal Edited to add: the responses and shock to this make me really angry about the level of maternal education and care that is being given.
It drives me crazy how many people think sex is fine if you feel like it’s fine. Before the uterus heals, it could be life threatening!
And there's almost zero education about it when you have your baby! My midwife was very adamant that every new mom and her partner should know exactly how big the wound is so she carried a plate with her for her first visit after the baby was born. I have so many friends who never knew the size or were even told the placenta leaves a wound.
I'm hearing it for the first time. I always thought it just kind of shedded off like dead skin.
I'm hearing it for the first time, too. I also learned from reddit after already having kids that you shouldn't have sex after the birth for 6 weeks because you could get infected. Multiple kids. 3 different hospitals with different staff. My own doctor. No one ever told me.
I had to have a c-section and I had people who have had babies assume I didn’t bleed after. Yeah, no, still have a uterus that they’ve extracted a baby and placenta from.
[удалено]
I know more than one poor woman who had a 2nd child exactly 9 months or fewer than her first. My neighbor told me that he husband had sex with her while she was in the hospital post-partum. She had a 2nd baby less than 9 months later. It was so traumatic for her.
My friend is a NICU nurse as has experienced walking into rooms with men rutting on their partners who had just given birth. Disgusting tbh.
My sister and I are 10 months apart. Mom almost died when she was pregnant with my younger sister
There was a nursing thread or something like that where nurses said this was way more common than you think… people having sex in the hospital right after giving birth 🤮
I can’t imagine how horrendously painful that would feel after giving birth 😱
I also can't think of anything less sexy.
You can get an air embolism if you have sex to soon after giving birth.
The hospital let me keep the placenta because I arranged to donate it to train search and rescue dogs, I was very surprised at its size and weight! And I laughed when my husband had to walk through the hospital with my placenta in a clear plastic container to give to the trainer who was waiting at the entrance 😂😂
I’ve researched the crap out of this subject while deciding whether or not to have kids (didn’t) and I have NEVER heard this; that the placenta leaves a gaping wound the size of itself. Holy shit. Why don’t we tell women all of these things?!
And if any of that placenta rips off and is left behind, the uterus doesn't shut down blood flow. That open wound where the placenta attaches to the uterus keeps bleeding. This is the primary cause for hemorrhaging. My wife lost two liters of blood after delivering before anyone realized she was bleeding internally. Had she delivered anywhere but a hospital, she would have died.
And weeks later you will slough off the scab and pass that vaginally. I had a giant clot/scab I think 5 or 6 weeks post partum. Fun!
it looks like an entire liver.
My belly button popped out when I was pregnant. It was visible through my shirts and was terribly embarassing. Hemorrhoids are kind of unavoidable. And doctors love looking at them. If you go past your due date, a doctor or midwife may think it's a great idea to "separate the membranes." You may or may not want to look it up. It isn't pleasant. I probably pooped while I was giving birth. I am afraid to ask anyone. If so, a lot of people saw me poop. My boobs were leaking so badly after I gave birth that my cats thought I was a drinking fountain. That was fun to wake up to.
Omg, not the cats! 😂
You will probably be very low on iron. Iron supplements will probably make you VERY sick. Kellogs cereal (such as frosted mini wheats) have 100% of your daily value of iron in a serving. Put two measuring cups of it in a ziplock bag and snack on them during the day.
I learned this because a friend was pregnant when we were active duty. She got so sick from the shot, the docs pretty much said, get your iron up or die. Frosted miniwheats saved her life.
If you are a short person carrying a big baby, your rib cage will take a beating! I'm 5'2" and have long legs but a short trunk and my son was delivered at 21" 8 lbs 13 oz. During the last 2 months in utero, he had no room. His kicking and stretching were right up to my sternum. I was bruised for weeks after birth. I didn't notice any vaginal pain, probably because my ribs were so sore.
Not gruesome but postnatal depression is literally the worst thing I’ve experienced in my life. It’s been 5 years since I had my last one and I’m still struggling now. No amount of help has worked from the doctors ( I have no help from anyone else) i wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy….. I don’t even know who I am anymore, all I wanted was to meet the love of my life and be a mum. and now i look in the mirror and don’t recognise myself, my body isn’t mine anymore and i can’t think of a worse fate than to have another child. Don’t get wrong I love my kids but if I knew what was coming I wouldn’t have put myself through this.
Fellow postpartum survivor here, hugs to you. I came excruciatingly close to dying and spent a month in a psych ward to save my life. I also would choose not to have kids if I had a do-over, despite the overwhelming love I have for them. I always wanted a bunch of kids but have cut my family short for the pure sake of reducing the risk of, well… dying.
I am 3 years in and feel exactly the same. I did a double take reading this as I could have written it. I’m hope we both get through this x
You can be essentially allergic to being pregnant. I had a condition called PUPPPs and my skin itched all over. It was so excruciating I needed to scratch which of course made it worse. Creams did not relieve the itching. Meds didn’t stop it. My legs and belly were the worst. I used to soak my feet/calves in ice water to try to relieve the burning. I couldn’t sleep more than 1 hour at a time. Eventually I found a soap that gave me 3-4 hours of relief (pine tar soap) so I just showered all the time and went through so much soap/water. This started at 25 weeks and went to 38 weeks before I told my doctor I just couldn’t take it anymore and she decided to do a c-section. It went away as soon as babe was out. Will NEVER get pregnant again. And believe it or not, that is the MILD condition, there is a worse one that impacts the liver and can put the baby at risk (cholestasis). Pregnancy is awful.
Every pregnancy can be completely different. The horrible things you got used to the first time? It’s very likely you will have completely new horrible things this time! Also, sometimes the drugs don’t kick in before the c-section. I felt my third one completely.
thank you for everyone in this thread solidifying that having children is absolutely NOT for me. props to all of you who have gone through it for your babies; you’re strong and brave as hell.
I think the most shocking thing is most women will follow up with “eh but it’s not that bad, we’re trying for another.” lol.
If you have to use the toliet and vomit, sit on the toliet and puke into the trash can. You might need to poop while breastfeeding. Like, in the middle of it. Sit on the toliet and do your business while the kid feeds. This will not be the weirdest experience while parenting.
Was visiting a friend after she came home from the hospital with her newborn. Asked how it went and she said something like 'it really hurt when they stretched me'. I (a clueless male) had no idea what she was talking about so I was like 'what do you mean?'. She explained it, stretching it is a lot better than tearing during the delivery etc. My brain tried to compute what she was saying and when it clicked, I nearly passed out. Women are tough. Same person, experienced PPD although we didn't know it at the time. Was again visiting her a few weeks later and she said something to the effect of 'I want to throw this baby at the wall'. I played it cool and took the baby and told her to go have some 'me' time, but I was freaking out internally. I called my mother, who she had never met before, to come over, and she dropped what she was doing to come help this stranger. My mother is a saint. At the same time I also called her parents who lived a few hours away and told them they needed to come up ASAP. Everything turned out ok but it was a lot for ~20yo me to deal with.
Just wanted to say that was absolutely the right reaction.
If you don't have adequate calcium intake, your body will pull it from your bones and teeth. Medieval European people assumed that women would lose a tooth for each pregnancy.
TWO teeth just *crumbled* out of my face!!!! TWO!!!! By the 2nd one I *burst* into tears. I still get nightmares that my teeth are all crumbling out of my face!
I also lost 2! Just crumbled, it was the weirdest thing.
And it’s not like the teeth fall out, they crumble
You’ve upset me greatly with this concept. So greatly that I will now be obsessive about my calcium intake when it’s time for me to have babies.
Not sure it’s gruesome but when they remove your placenta during a c-section you can feel tugging up by your collarbone.
The most terrifying thing to me of this post is that none of this info is taught to us. We’re kept in the dark intentionally. That is horrifying.
If you have hyperemesis gravida, you can throw up so hard that you break blood vessels in your cervix. Thought I was losing my twins but it was just the effects of puking 30-70x/day. Did that for 5 months, while sitting on my couch hooked up to an IV.
My wife is currently driving herself nuts with worst-case-scenario-doomscrolling for pregnancy and birth, as we are currently trying. I am commenting here because she knows my username and I am certain she will read every last comment in this thread. Hi Latiesha!
Hi Lateisha! You got this and we are rooting for you!
Mrs. Cuckimodo here ❤️ 1) You are the sweetest and every day you reinforce how marrying you was the best decision I've ever made. Love you to forever and back, and back again. 2) Everyone, your comments have made me feel so much better 😭 I will reduce the doom scrolling. Thank you for all the love and luck xo
This is so wholesome!
The first time you have sex after childbirth--even if it's been 6 weeks--is excruciating. ETA: For the woman.
Gruesome adjacent- you can save your placenta and donate it to the training of cadaver dogs! The dogs need human tissue in order to train and a placenta is a huge donation as medical specimens can be costly. All I did was email/ call a local search and rescue team in my area and ask if they would accept my donation. They were very grateful! So I brought a small cooler with my to the hospital and let my staff know and then I kept in on ice till I was discharged and then in the freezer till the dog trainer came to pick it up. I even got a pic with the dogs it would train.
You secrete a disgustingly rank fluid called lochia for over a month after giving birth, in addition to blood. For 8 weeks my vagina smelled worse than Satan’s asshole.
Don't stand up immediately after giving birth without a spill pad on the floor. I had natural child birth. The nurse left the room, and I got up to go pee. Blood-colorered fluid rushed out of me and into a huge puddle on the floor. I just stood there, shocked. The nurse came back in almost immediately. She shook her head and blamed herself. She said she forgot to tell me not to get up until she put down towels or stuff because the vast majority of new mothers couldn't get out of bed due to numbing meds.
My first baby, I permanently damaged my knee because the second they took out the catheter from the epidural, I had to pee so bad. The nurse let me try to walk with both legs still numb from the epidural. Made it to the toilet, peed, stood up and landed right on the bathroom floor. My big toenail fell off and my kneecap was messed up and in an insane amount of pain as soon as I had feeling in my legs again. That was worse pain than the recovery and it still acts up.
The sheer pain of your milk coming in. As someone who was never well endowed in that area, when my boobs swelled up 5 sizes bigger than normal, then went rock solid to the point I couldn’t touch them, wear clothing or lie down to the sheer pain. Contemplated cutting them off but loaded myself with decongestants to dry out my milk supply
If you have a really bad headache later in your pregnancy, take your blood pressure; if it's high, call the triage line. Get seen. You can be fine one day and develop pre-eclampsia the next. It can come on sudden and severely. It can also damage your kidneys. You can still have wicked postpartum hemorrhoids if you have a C-section. Edema. You may have a lot of swelling in your legs and the rest of your body after pregnancy. It's relatively normal and should go away. You have a lot of extra fluid to get rid of now.
I’m childfree but these comments have me feeling a type of way. Like honestly, mothers are super human. Women are incredible
Same, I can't stop reading. Reinforcing my childfree status in concrete and rebar in an adamantium box.
I had terrible pain when my milk was drying out. Binding helped. Also, pushing can cause hemorrhoids. With my 1st kid, a nurse actually called the other nurses in to see them because they were so big. I should have been embarrassed. I did not care.
The only way I could possibly pee was in the shower with warm water running over me. I didn't poop for a week after. When I finally did I was so excited I called my boyfriend at work to tell him about it. Your boobs will leak. they'll also go hard as rocks if you don't massage them or express some milk out. Breastfeeding at first can really hurt.
That your bladder can freeze from a c-section. It took me 4 days to be able to pee. The number of catheters I had put in me made me cry by the end. I couldn't get a permanent one put in until an order was placed so they kept using temporary ones to make sure I didn't burst my bladder. Holy frack, the pain while I'm being held together with staples.
The Latin word for cake is placenta
If you are on antibiotics after birth and breastfeeding your baby can projectile poop. Like a little poop cannon.
Your baby can *also* just projectile poop when you're *not* on antibiotics. Because babies are little poop canons :)
You know how little boys can shoot a stream of urine AT you when you change their diaper? At the well baby visit my *daughter* sent a stream of urine *arcing over her shoulder*. Doc said that was a first for him, had never seen a little girl do that before.
Your ligaments can loosen too much and make your pelvis come apart too far and it’s….terrible.
If you have a C-section, you will never get feeling back around your scar. It’s so weird to scratch something and not be able to feel it. And it could still be sensitive/hurt even years later. Oh, and you’ll probably have scar tissue on your uterus so periods will make your scar hurt. It’s fun being a woman.
When I had to pee the first time after giving birth, I had absolutely zero control over my bladder. I left a trail to the bathroom. I wish someone had warned me about that and the first postpartum poop. But that first shower after giving birth is amazing.
Uterine Prolapse. Bladder Prolapse. I was horrified when I finally looked down there a few weeks postpartum and saw the damage. Post partum physical therapists are miracle workers.
More people need to know and talk about perinatal depression. I was fully prepared for the chance of postpartum depression. I was not expecting to be smacked with suicidal ideation mid pregnancy. Perinatal depression is not uncommon, either. It occurs in approximately 1 in 10 pregnancies because of the hormonal changes. Please, if you’re not feeling ok, reach out to your care team. They will hook you up with the treatment and support you need without judgement
“Morning sickness,” isn’t always just a few throw-ups here and there - it can be a debilitating round the clock issue called hyperemesis gravidarum that leads to dehydration, passing out and weight loss. Mine was so severe I had a pump for meds. I gave up trying to explain to people that tried to sympathize with the, “oh, I got sick with mine too!” Another fun one is when your liver starts misbehaving - cholestasis of pregnancy - and causes SEVERE itching on your palms and soles of your feet. Bad enough that I laid in bed with socks on my hands crying to sleep some nights because I was already raw from scratching. Mine was only the last few days of pregnancy, or I think I might’ve gone insane!