I read all the childbirth books, watched dozens of home births on youtube and listened to all my friends tell their stories of labor and delivery. And yet, when I gave birth to my daughter, I was caught off guard by all of the things that EVERYONE HAD NEGLECTED TO MENTION.
Lots of these things were deal-breakingly bad, as in, maybe I would have practiced safer sex. Or at least scheduled a c-section.
Fair warning: if you are already pregnant you may not want to read on. But perhaps you want to know, like I wish I had, exactly how gory and humbling and excruciating of an experience you are about to have.
First of all, give up the notion of being stoic or reserved or one of the silent Scientology women when you are in labor. Think instead of the scene in "The Exorcist" when Linda Blair's head swivels around and she drops the f-bomb at the priest. Linda Blair will seem like your charming younger sister compared to you during labor.
"How will you know when you are in labor?" every pregnant woman asks. Everyone answers the same way, that "you'll just know." Which is true. Labor feels nothing like menstrual cramps — it's more like your body being mangled in heavy farm equipment. And if you are lucky enough to have your water break, no, you won't wonder if you have just peed your pants or the bed. You will wonder if you had a water bed that ruptured or if you accidentally sat in a hot tub.
Another thing nobody mentioned: the uncontrollable shitting and puking, which for some people happens simultaneously. Not everyone vomits, it's true, but almost everyone poops out nine months of colon-clogging cravings as they try to expel the baby through the other hole. "Push," everyone in the delivery rooms says, and push you do. My cousin is a nurse and she warned me to give myself an enema before getting to the hospital. Of course it is not feasible for a woman who is nine-plus months pregnant to even see her own beaver, much less give its backyard a bath.
You should probably embrace that poop, anyway, because it is the last one you will take for a long, long time. If you give birth vaginally, you will have hemorrhoids that are so evil that they will scare away any desire to use the toilet for el numero dos for as long as you can possibly stand to hold it. And you will be amazed at how long that is. Hint: If the nurse offers you a stool softener, take it. Then ask her for another.
Oh, and if you want pain relief — and you will — you should know two things about the mack daddy of pain relief, the epidural. First, it is administered through a floppy needle that is not inches but FEET long and which is inserted into your back, and second, it comes with a catheter. The hospital staff is more than happy to give you the epidural and stop your screaming but they are not about to get pissed on while your nether region is comfortably numb.
And just when you think it's all over, it really isn't: You still have to birth the placenta. Don't worry, this is not as bad as it sounds. It's almost anti-climactic pain, like embarrassing yourself in front of your ex after you've been dumped. It still hurts a little, but who cares?
As you may have already gleaned from your pregnancy, your life will never be the same after childbirth. Nor will your body — your vagina, your abdomen, and your ass will never be the size they once were. But the most important life change will be the precious package that you grew inside your belly and birthed between your legs, and although it is cliché to call it a miracle, it truly is. What is also a miracle is how extremely ordinary it is at the same time, because everyone, everywhere came into the world in this same utterly amazing way.
Best of luck.
