Was it just me? . .

[satya]

No I think the calm births you see on TV etc are in the minority. Giving birth is painful, most people don't handle that kinda pain too well.

I thought I'd handle birth far better than I did. I'd had a wisdom tooth taken out in the dentists chair and never felt a thing at the time or afterwards so felt my pain tolerance was pretty good as I'd heard so many bad stories about wisdom tooth removal. How wrong can you be!!!!!

I had watched so many birth shows on Foxtel I thought I had a good idea of what it was going to be like. It was nothing like any show I'd ever seen. About a couple of weeks after giving birth I watched one that was more like it - I wish I'd seen it beforehand.

I was quite noisy throughout the birth - moaning I think. I swore heaps and I very rarely sware normally. I was 6cms when I arrived at hossy but didn't birth til 11 hours later. The way they show it on TV it's all much quicker than that (17 hours total labour and a day of prelabour as well). I also pushed for just under 2 hours before they vacc'd him out. On TV it looks like they just push a few times.

All I can say is I'm glad I didn't have a home birth - couldn't have done it without the drugs. At home I had uncontrollable shivers with each contraction for the last hour or two before going to hossy - that only went away when I got some decent drugs into me. Panadeine forte just didn't do it for me.

I think the reason the birth shows are quite peaceful is that most of them have had epidurals and therefore they don't feel most of the pain. Most of the shows are American and epis are pretty much thrown at them, unlike in Aus.