New Mummy Blog: A Positive Labour Story

When I was pregnant, the only accounts of labour I heard were negative ones. People seemed to love to regale me with horror stories.

More often than not, it wasn’t even their horror story, but that of a colleague, a friend of their sisters, or some other vague connection.

I knew labour would be tough. I knew many, many things could go wrong. But I didn’t need to be reminded. In detail. I’d read up on labour and birth just enough to write my birthing plan.

Beyond that, I didn’t want to know too much more. I even avoided One Born Every Minute.

While I was under no illusion that labour would be a fun day out, I really didn’t need to be ‘prepared for the worst’ (i.e. scared senseless). Yet that seems to have been what some people were trying to do.

As it happened, the births of both my children were really positive experiences. And I’m approaching this topic days after going through labour number two, so it’s not that the memory has had time to soften and fade.

As is often the case, my second labour was quicker than my first. Following a couple of hours of contractions at home, I laboured at hospital for less than an hour.

After 20 minutes of gas and air, Henry was born. The midwife didn’t even have time to fill the birthing pool.

Within an hour and a half of Henry’s arrival, the hospital told us we could go home as soon as we’d had his new baby check. We were home in time for our toddler’s breakfast – she hadn’t even had time to realise we weren’t there when she woke up.

I wish everyone’s experience could be like this. I know, I am very lucky.

I know, the reason I kept hearing horror stories was because for many people, sadly that’s what their birth experiences are. But I think it’s important to share the good stories too.

I’ve given birth once in a birthing centre and once in a hospital. Both times I was supported by brilliant midwives (and a brilliant husband, of course).

If things had gone wrong would I have been more prepared thanks to the scare stories about someone’s Aunt Nellie’s labour complications? No, probably not. I put them out of my mind and put myself in the hands of those brilliant midwives.

I’m not denying there were hugely unpleasant parts to my births, and the days following too. The blood, the stitches, the after pains that, second time round were excrutiating and seemed to go on forever – a cruel addition to the early days of adjustment to life with a newborn and a toddler.

But I do want to stand up and say to anyone approaching the birth of their first child feeling daunted, out of their depth or just plain terrified, in amongst the horror stories, there are ‘good’ stories too.

I came through both labours filled with euphoria, triumphant at what my body could do and the baby we had made. It’s a feeling I wish upon every labouring woman – it’s hard won and well earned.

I’ve never felt such pride, or love. It’s a feeling I wish I could bottle, as I really can’t keep having babies to recapture it.

Well... maybe one more.

[New Mummy Blog: I'm Just As Anxious About My Second Baby's Birth As I Was My First]

[Dads Shouldn't Always Attend Their Babies Births, Say Experts]