labor/csect: what do you wish you had known ahead of time?

I did know that water breaking doesn't mean labor, but I wished I hadn't forced labor because of it...

After all these years, I have come to much better understand both the physiological process and the maternity care climate---      

Hindsight is 20/20!

;-)

Stay upright and walking around as long as possible, wait to go to the hospital as long as possible, and laboring in a tub is WONDERFUL.

For c-sec not having morphine when getting ur spinal is a very very painful!!!! Thought I was gonna die from pain was throwing up as they cut me open

Mine was much worse than I thought. And everything unexpected happened.

My son was head down but face up ("sunny side up" as some call it). I didn't realize it would make such a difference. We tried everything to flip him but he just wouldn't flip. The epidural worked for contractions in the beginning, but then as the labor got more severe, and the more my son got stuck, the epidural just completely wore off. It was horrible & terrifying, and traumatizing. Ended in an emergency c-section anyway.

I wish I knew to stay home longer before going to the hospital. My water broke around 4-5am on Tuesday morning (had my son at 8:18am on Wednesday). Everyone was flipping out for me to go to the hospital, wish I waited til I MYSELF was ready & wanted to go & waited for contractions to be closer. Cause once I was in the hospital I didn't get to eat or sleep the whole time, so I was exhausted & weak by the time it came to push for 3 hours for NOTHING.

Quoting vwd_johnson:

Mine was much worse than I thought. And everything unexpected happened.

My son was head down but face up ("sunny side up" as some call it). I didn't realize it would make such a difference. We tried everything to flip him but he just wouldn't flip. The epidural worked for contractions in the beginning, but then as the labor got more severe, and the more my son got stuck, the epidural just completely wore off. It was horrible & terrifying, and traumatizing. Ended in an emergency c-section anyway.

I wish I knew to stay home longer before going to the hospital. My water broke around 4-5am on Tuesday morning (had my son at 8:18am on Wednesday). Everyone was flipping out for me to go to the hospital, wish I waited til I MYSELF was ready & wanted to go & waited for contractions to be closer. Cause once I was in the hospital I didn't get to eat or sleep the whole time, so I was exhausted & weak by the time it came to push for 3 hours for NOTHING.

oh my goodness. stories like that terrify me!!! ahhH!! :( I'm definitely glad I've watched videos and heard a lot of women say they prefer to labor at home for a while.. I will definitely be doing that!!!

Yes definitely stay home as long as your comfortable & feel safe, it's much better. I waited 3 or so hours to go to the hospital, but I wish I waited more like 8 Haha.... My labor just took forever to progress because he was facing the wrong way.

My poor friend just had her baby & he was facing sunny side up too & hers was just as horrible as mine & again ended in emergency c-section. So my advice is if they say baby is facing wrong, try EVERYTHING they suggest to turn that little one :)

Quoting LiveByTheSun:

Quoting vwd_johnson:

Mine was much worse than I thought. And everything unexpected happened.



My son was head down but face up ("sunny side up" as some call it). I didn't realize it would make such a difference. We tried everything to flip him but he just wouldn't flip. The epidural worked for contractions in the beginning, but then as the labor got more severe, and the more my son got stuck, the epidural just completely wore off. It was horrible & terrifying, and traumatizing. Ended in an emergency c-section anyway.



I wish I knew to stay home longer before going to the hospital. My water broke around 4-5am on Tuesday morning (had my son at 8:18am on Wednesday). Everyone was flipping out for me to go to the hospital, wish I waited til I MYSELF was ready & wanted to go & waited for contractions to be closer. Cause once I was in the hospital I didn't get to eat or sleep the whole time, so I was exhausted & weak by the time it came to push for 3 hours for NOTHING.

oh my goodness. stories like that terrify me!!! ahhH!! :( I'm definitely glad I've watched videos and heard a lot of women say they prefer to labor at home for a while.. I will definitely be doing that!!!