“No one told me THAT was going to happen!!!”
You may here this all the time from women after labor, when your colleagues come back to work after maternity leave or when your cousin had her baby last month. Birth is the world of the unknown. We get short snippets from TV and movies but most of us have not attended an actual birth before. Of course we have no idea what to expect. As doulas, and childbirth educators we highly recommend watching videos of birth before your own labor. This can retrain your subconscious for what birth looks like.
How Labor Starts:
TV Birth – Water breaks in a huge splash and woman is rushed to the hospital
Real Life – Sometimes the bag of waters (amniotic sack) breaks first but not usually. It is more likely that slow contractions will start first. If your water does break first that does not mean you have to rush to the hospital. Check in with your provider, most will want you to rest at home and see if the contractions start on their own. If not you may need to come into the hospital to be induced.
When water does break many of moms feel more of a slow leak or a trickle rather than a dramatic flood. It will basically be coming out of you the rest of the time. (Also at certain points you will have a bloody show come out. This is nothing to worry about is actually a great sign of progress.) Water can also break twice, a fun surprise. If your bag of water is not breaking sometimes your provider will break the amniotic sac to help induce and speed up labor.
What Labor Looks Like:
TV Birth – Mom is sitting in a bed in a wild rage usually screaming something horrible at the father as she pushes their baby out. Most TV births actually only show the pushing stage.
Real Life – The people in the room may not be Mom, Dad and Doctor. We live in a modern family world and “mom” may be dad. The partner may be mom, there may be a midwife. The birth may be at home or a birthing center. Labor is long and less dramatic. First time labors average 16-18 hours. When contractions first start the feeling is so small you can walk and talk through them. The contractions will build intensity and length. The laboring person can be in many positions or places throughout the stages of labor. Getting the shakes, flashing between hot and cold temperatures, getting nausea, throwing up and having a bowl movement are all normal! This is the first day of your life since you were a baby that everyone will cheer you on as each of these things happens. These are all signs of progress
What Pushing Looks Like:
TV Birth – Woman on bed feet up in stir ups (still yelling uncontrollably) and baby is pushed out in a few contractions.
Real Life – Pushing is actually the stage where most laboring people feel they have the most control. Now they have a job to do when each of these contractions come. They can get very focused and many while take deep breaths and hold their breath to push baby down and out. Pushing happens in many places, on your side, on hands and knees, turned around holding on to the back of the bed, on a birth stool, in a tub, using a squatting bar on the bed…. Pushing for first timers can last form 30 minutes to three hours so you may do all of these positions. Yes I said 3 hours (even with an epidural you can get in other positions)
This is just to give you an image of a squat bar. You don’t wear pants when pushing a baby out
What An Epidural Looks Like:
TV Birth – A wonderful pain free world of bliss
Real Life – Sometime it is just that a pain free world full of bliss. Some will fall fast asleep and wake up and push out a baby. Some birthing people will experience a sudden drop in their blood pressure after getting the epidural, resulting in oxygen and other medicines’ being administered. This can happen throughout the rest of labor as well. The nurses from this point on will be watching your and babies blood pressure to make sure you are handling it well. In any birth if there is ever an issue with parent or baby heart rate this is when providers start to talk about cesarean birth.
Sometimes it takes awhile for the epidural to kick in on one side. Your birthing team will have to do some crafty work to get it to spread throughout your body. It also can stop working all of sudden. (NOTE: this is why you should still practice those breathing techniques) On last side effect is a possible fever, which would result in the need of antibiotics.
What It Looks Like After The Baby Is Born:
TV Birth – Again a world of bliss and love (And freshly done makeup)
Real Life – Relief, exhaustion, thirst, hunger, crying, and ah yes there will be a moment where you are like oh this is my baby that I love so much I created in my belly. But it may not be the first thing you think of. And the most important thing is that’s ok!!! You are still your own person and you have just gone through a lot. Take a minute to breath and get back to yourself. (you still have to push the placenta out) Then snuggle that baby, you work hard for them!
When it comes time for the placenta, the provider will “massage” you uterus. This is not a feel good massage. It can take a few or even up to 30 minutes for the placenta to come. With a few gentle pushes it will come out. The nurses will continue to “massage” you over the next few days of your visit to help your uterus to contract back up. This is said to help with post birth bleeding, which will happen for a few weeks after birth. (yes even when you have a cesarean). If you have torn at all (don’t worry you can’t feel it) they can stitch you back up with baby laying on you in bed (now your feet are up in the modern day stirrups, more like a little ledge)
*****Just a little bonus, the first bowl movement after any birth can be a scary thought. Make sure you are eating food that is easy to digest; warm, mushy, soups, stews. Use spices like ginger cinnamon, black pepper to get those digestive juices flowing ******
In the comments below let us know if there are any other things you think people should know about before they go into labor.
