Nothing truly prepares you for what it's like to give birth to a baby. The books try, and so do friends and family, but rarely are loved ones and What To Expect When You're Expecting able to get down to the real nitty gritty of what happens in the delivery room. Luckily, we have Reddit for that. Parents on Reddit are sharing the parts of giving birth that no one warned them about, and the thread has become a place of bonding for veteran moms and expectant moms alike.
First of all, birth involves a lot more liquid than you might expect.
Often, the waters don't break all at once. There can also be blood, discharge, urine — you name it. Every woman is different.
There are also a lot of people in and out of the delivery room checking your cervix, inserting catheters, moving you around, and placing monitors.
If you give birth outside of the hospital, you likely won't have as much action going on. But you're still just as likely to birth all of your inhibitions out right along with the baby.
For some people, the epidural is man's greatest invention.
And Padsicles may just be man's second greatest invention.
Luckily, padsicles are really easy to make.
The contractions don't stop when the baby comes.
You still have to deliver the placenta once the baby is out, and sometimes the nurses or midwives have to knead your stomach to help your uterus contract. "What the f*ck," one woman wrote of the kneading. "I know they're doing their job and it's for my own good but that made me want to punch my otherwise kind and gentle caretakers. It was almost worse than labor and delivery. Almost."
C-section moms opened up about what it's like to stand up after the surgery.
One mom even described the actual C-section process by saying, "The nurse described it to me as being like having someone do dishes in your abdomen, and that was the most horrifyingly accurate way you could put it."
Once you give birth, you bleed for a long time.
The post-birth bleeding happens whether you delivered vaginally or via C-section, and it can last for several weeks.
One woman also warned new moms not to look at their own vaginas post-birth, no matter how curious they are.
But, despite all the scary stories, one mom used the opportunity to remind women why we go through all of this: for our babies.
Even if we're exhausted, hurting, and struggling to bond, she wrote, we're still doing a great job. Cheers to all the warrior moms who've carried, birthed, and/or mothered new little babies!
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.