My experience of giving birth in Spain - and an insight into what the pain is REALLY like! (Preparing for Birth)

Member Name: snootybutnice

Product:	Preparing for Birth
Date:	25/01/09 (120 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Have a wonderful baby afterwards - makes the wait all worthwhile.

Disadvantages: Now the hard work really begins...as do the sleepless nights!

My experience of childbirth was good so read on!!....

Firstly I got to the final realisation, a few months before giving birth, that come hell or high water the baby was coming out either by C-Section or normal delivery so I may as well not worry about it. This set me at ease. Basically even if I changed my mind about the whole business of having a baby I was still going to have to go through labour one way or another!

What is childbirth like exactly? My research showed that it's different for all women. Some orgasm (lucky buggers!), others swear the pain is horrendous - and they couldn't possibly go through it again (but they do!), and others like me are fine and veritably sail through.

The pain. Here's the big question that has us all worried first time around. How bad is it really. Well...maybe I have a high pain threshold but I do remember thinking whether or not the whole "excruitiating pain" thing was something made up by women who'd had a baby just to put the rest of us off.

My direct experience of "pain" was...well...think of it in these terms....Have you ever had really bad diahorrea? The type where you just want to lie down on the cold floor and for it to stop - you feel hot/sweaty/feel like you want to faint - and you get stomach cramps. Most of us ...especially if you've been to India like I have... have had this.

Well SURPRISE! Childbirth was exactly like that for me. I kind of went into a trance like state and went through all these feelings - then suddenly things changed and my body just started bearing/pushing down. I can only liken it to the way your body naturally pushes poo out! The body pushes the baby out in the same way - and I just sat there power breathing (!) and then my body just let out these big screams while my body pushed.

Now...I always thought the pain got worse when the women screamed on the TV while they were giving birth. But for me it was no different to the diahorrea feelings of earlier - except that my body just insisted on screaming (presumably this is a natural instinct and helps push the baby out?). It almost sounded as if it wasn't me yelling but someone else.

The doctors told me to shut up at first (charming!) because I couldn't possibly want to push as I'd only started contractions less than 1.5 hours beforehand - but they were wrong - my baby was coming (albeit 5 weeks prem!) and when they checked me they apologised and said the baby would be arriving within 5 minutes. No shit!! ;-)

When she finally arrived I was so out of it (despite not having any drugs) that I just looked at her and didn't have use of my arms so the nurse turned her around so I could see my beautiful daughters face - then they whipped her away to the ICT to check she was OK since she was prem. That, in a nutshell (albeit a large nutshell) was my experience of giving birth. Hope that helps and good luck to you. xxx

Summary: I loved giving birth - don't be afraid of this part but embrace it - and enjoy it.