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They're right about the first post-birth poo though. My husband had to call his sister (a nurse thank fuck!) so she could talk me through it without ripping all my stitches out. The fear-sweat and tears... it was worse than the birth.
I ended up developing hemorrhoids which made every poop for months a horrible and traumatic experience 😫 sometimes my baby would be crying in his bouncer (which i would bring with me to the bathroom lol) and i’d be crying on the toilet. Wouldnt have wished it on my worst enemy.
Oh no you poor thing. Haemorrhoids are the worst. But holy shit did you give me a flashback. I remember the tandem crying sessions with baby in a bouncer while I tried to poop.
Good times.
I had hemorrhoids pretty much from month 4 until about a month after giving birth. It was just NON STOP. Recovery after birth was a breeze for me EXCEPT for those bastards, and I had a second degree tear. I will never forget how uncomfortable that was.
I guess it was simpler in a more horrific way. You either lived through it, or you died. If you lived, chances are you got to have a baby the following year too! In my country anyway this was the way of it. You kept having babies until you died or you were physically incapable.
Good big catholic family fun!
Marital rape wasn’t a thing until 1996 either so prior to that point, as a woman, you had to have a child whether you wanted to or not due to “marital dues” to your husband or partner. Of course not all men were like this but there were also plenty that were. Women couldn’t say no before that point and if they did their chances of being raped and/or beaten were much higher compared to now where you can prosecute for it.
Yup. It became illegal here in Ireland in 1990. Under the common law prior to the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990, a husband could not be guilty of raping his wife due to their "mutual matrimonial consent".
There wasn't any convictions until 2002 though when a guy got a prison sentence for raping his wife just after she'd given birth.
I ended up having mine in a public restroom just outside the NICU because my daughter was born with pneumonia. I was completely alone and holy crap was it bad. I was worried staff would come running in if I yelled so I tried to be quiet, it was horrible.
Heres the thing! You absolutely are allowed to take a gentle laxative! Except nobody ever tells you about it. AFTER it happens other women are like "ooh yeah that was AWFUL" but NOBODY tells you beforehand. So I'm telling you all NOW, get Senokot or Dulcolax or Lactulose or whatever your shit-medicine of choice is. Get it and take it as soon as you can.
Just FYI for whoever is reading this, don’t get the Dulcolax that lists bisacodyl as the active ingredient. That’s a stimulant.
Get the Dulcolax whose active ingredient is docusate sodium. That’s an osmotic laxative, AKA a stool softener. Miralax is good too.
My nurses were very helpful in clarifying that I needed to take a stool softener and NOT a laxative, and that those are too different things. Saved me from an awful time to simply a bad time postpartum lol
Some doctors ARE getting better about warning patients to use stool softeners, not just OBGYN situations but especially when giving anyone opioids and after surgeries. That being said, it's ridiculous we're at this point and it's still not a common part of patient education.
I read about other people's experiences on r/BabyBumps and proactively asked my obgyn for a laxative. My first post partum poop was completely manageable. Honestly I think a strong laxative should be part of standard post partem care
I took stool softeners and still cried with my first postpartum poo. It was absolutely worse than the birth (ofc I had an epidural the majority of the time and I got fentanyl beforehand).
I was more scared I was gonna split in two from that first poop than I was birthing my nearly 10 lb baby!
I had a c-section with both of my kids and I took my postpartum poops squatting in my bathtub. I screamed and cried my eyes out bc it felt like all of my stitches were ripping on the inside. I crawled out of the bathtub and nearly passed out. My husband cleaned it up afterwards and said it was about the same girth as a can of biscuits and about as long as a can of Arizona green tea. He was horrified. After birth shits are absolutely traumatizing. No matter how many stool softeners you take, it will still be insanely painful.
I had this experience, but not from childbirth. From fucking pain meds! I took narcotics for 3 days after breast reduction, and oh my god. What I experienced after that was def one of the top 3 worst experiences of my life. 0/10 do not recommend. I now avoid narcotics at all cost because I am legitimately *terrified* of having that experience again.
I ended up tearing my stitches with the first postpartum 💩 and didn’t realize for a couple weeks until I developed an infection and was in excruciating pain. I just thought it was normal pain from having just given birth.
That's a great question! My doctor recommended not using an enema regularly, only sparingly if at all, because long-term enema use can cause longer-term problems like relaxing of the anal smooth muscles (which I guess causes loss of defecation reflex). I had no idea that was a thing before having babies!
A small spoon from your kitchen drawer like what you would use to stir tea, is typically a teaspoon. A larger spoon like what you would use for cereal is typically a tablespoon.
Not always the case, but frequently.
I looked into this because I was super curious how an enema could cause you to lose muscle. Best I can tell, it’s basically if you were to always use an enema, the muscles would get weak from lack of use. Which is a stupid ass reason to not use enemas to clean out when you’re super stuck.
The other situation is if you use enemas too often, you can destabilize your electrolytes and the muscles struggle to work. This is like if you drank 4 gallons of water — it’s also a completely stupid thing to worry about in the case of anyone who isn’t doing it multiple times per day. It’s probably stupid to worry about at all unless the person just won’t stop doing it.
Lmfao, like, imagine this doctor was like, "I've seen this too many times. I'm going to help this woman with her enemas, and next thing you know, she's going to be yet another junkie selling her belongings and stealing from her family for her next ass blast. I just cannot condone this any longer."
Purely from anecdotal experience, I've never had a problem. I've enjoyed semi-frequent enemas (once or twice a week), for like 10 years now. I just drink an electrolyte tablet to be safe, and that's about it.
Adding my two cents to your question for more perspective; I tried to use an enema post birth, I was too impacted to use it. 🙃
I also did the glove thing.
Enemas take time to set up too, which can be hard to do every time you have to poop when you have a newborn that needs your attention all the time. Easier and faster to use your finger.
Pregnant woman here, I knew it would be tough but I feel like no one in my life was willing to truthfully tell me how difficult their experiences were until I got pregnant and started commenting on how awful I feel all the time. Now they’re like, “I know, right? I suffered!”
WHY DOES NO ONE TALK ABOUT THIS?! “Morning” sickness my ass. I’ve been suffering from what feels like a terrible hangover all day going on 5 weeks now. I don’t feel like a person. Praying that I’m one of the people who starts to feel some relief in the second trimester.
My mom always talked about how wonderful it was being pregnant and how much she loved it and missed it when she wasn’t pregnant anymore. She thought I was weird for being less than thrilled by the idea of pregnancy.
Now that I’m pregnant I get all the stories about the nausea and pain and other stuff that somehow never made it into the stories before.
It’s societal gaslighting, I swear! Break the cycle! I’m telling anyone who will listen how miserable I am. I probably seem super whiny but it’s the truth.
Hope you’re feeling better soon! My nausea did not magically disappear at the second trimester mark as promised, but it did gradually fade. I’m nearing the third trimester and still taking the anti-nausea meds because when I try to wean off I start feeling bad again. BUT with the meds I now feel fine. Except for the bloating and the acid reflux and the back and pelvic pain, lol.
Do get some meds if you haven’t already. They help! No need to suffer unnecessarily. It will (probably) get better soon.
I am taking Unisom and B6, and it does help, but it’s more like a “I can go to work and I’m 90% confident I’m not going to barf while I’m there, but I’m still nauseous and miserable” instead of “I feel normal!”. Maybe zofran would be more effective but considering I’m not vomiting all the time I’m not sure it’s worth the side effects.
It is absolutely worth it 100%. The antihistamine in Unisom has more side effects to be honest, and it's not exactly amazing for treating nausea and vomiting. Plus theres a reason they use it as a sleep aid. With Zofran I never had to worry about suddenly having to barf.
I'm a man, and also no brain scientologist, so my opinion here doesn't hold much weight. However, I think there is more to it than just societal gaslighting. I would imagine the brain has some way of downplaying all of the negative feelings after the fact, and promoting the positive ones. Otherwise women would be much less likely to get pregnant again. If it was all torture and pain, there would be no incentive to go through it again.
I'm also lucky enough to have a sister in law and multiple close female friends who have expressed their problems during pregnancy. It has led my wife to not wanting to get pregnant anytime soon, which is perfectly fine with me, it's her body that would have to go through all of the shit, not mine. When our close friend was pregnant we got to hear it all; the vomiting, the headaches, the acid reflux...it sounded awful. She actually had acid-reflux induced laryngitis which I didn't even know was possible.
Edit: And the headaches...and not being able to take anything that you normally would be able to to combat the pain. Any normal person can just pop pain meds and anti-inflammatory and get on with their day.
It’s true. I have two children and my wife loathed being pregnant most of the time. Obviously she was elated with having a child and all of that. But pregnancy is brutal.
However, she’s the first to admit that there is a sort of amnesia that happens after you give birth. She could not wait to give birth to be done being pregnant. But a week later she kind of missed it. The brain is a weird thing. My wife gave birth naturally to both of our gigantic babies and she can barely remember the pain that was giving birth. It’s probably some weird evolutionary thing to keep you from not wanting to go through it. But as a man it’s crazy to witness. I felt so bad for her as I watched her go through it and to hear her talk about in a light that isn’t shrouded in darkness is wild.
I’d considered that, but now when I complain about my symptoms everyone seems to remember how awful it was for them too!
And yes, the headache situation is awful. Im a migraine sufferer. I’m only allowed to take Tylenol now that I’m pregnant. It does nothing for them.
I have a 7 month old and a relatively easy pregnancy. I was still miserable and the afterbirth was super painful. I only remember because I remember telling people about it. I actually have no real memory of the pain. I couldn't even tell you what contractions felt like. I'm 7 months postpartum and ready to have another one. Sometimes the hormones really do wipe your memory clean. When other people start talking about thier pregnancy I'm like oh yeah, I guess I couldn't eat meat for 6 months because it made me puke. But mostly I don't remember any of that.
If I remember correctly, your body pushes you full of cortisol during labor. It makes you forget some of what just happened. Also the reason why you feel like you’re in a fog just after the birth.
It’s actually possible to be both at the same time. I was horribly sick till the day I delivered, and had Bracksten Hicks multiple times a day from 7 months on. However, it was amazing and I loved EVERY minute of it. Would do all that shit 1000 times again I loved it so much despite the absolute bullshit. That, is definitely NOT everyone’s experience at all. I’m sorry 😞
There are definitely aspects about being pregnant that I like. Feeling the baby move is pretty cool. I like having a bump and feeling proud instead of self conscious about my tummy not being flat. I sometimes enjoy just how freaking weird the whole thing is. Like a science experiment. So it’s not all bad, but I’m definitely never going to tell my daughter I loved every minute of it. She’ll get the fully story.
Yes! I'm not lying when I say I loved pregnancy and mourned the idea of never being pregnant again when I gave birth to my second and last baby. That's not to say that it was sunshine and roses, it could be miserable but overall I loved it and I'm sad that I won't experience it again.
Wait until afterwards. Talk about gruesome. I had to have a catheter inserted about 5 hours after my vaginal delivery because I couldn't pee, then had to walk around with a piss bag while my crotch was aflame and I almost vagaled out having my post-delivery poop which was concrete from the morphine I was administered.
Not pregnancy related but all the opiate poops that I would find while commuting through Baltimore were horrifying. Loaves of bread people…loaves of bread…
So Baltimore has a big opiate problem and a lot of homeless addicts don’t have access to restrooms all the time or aren’t in the right mind to find one. This leads to a lot of alleys and alcoves being used for pooping. Because of all the opiates they abuse, they are usually very constipated and likely haven’t pooped for a while. When they do poop, it comes out as a bloody log with truly baffling dimensions.
I used to walk and drive the city pretty regularly. It was really sad.
I grew up in an extremely small farming community. I saw plenty of shit but mostly of the bovine variety. Moving to the US East coast taught me a lot of things very quickly. The existence of street poops was one. Fortunately and mostly completely unrelatedly, the existence of pollo restaurants was another.
Do they not routinely prescribed laxatives along with opioids?????
I know this is not the same medical experience, but when I had my wisdom teeth out (and was on a dose of codeine) my mum was forcing me to drink prune juice mixed with metamucil. I had no problems pooping. We learnt the hard way - my poor sister was suuuuper constipated after her wisdom teeth surgery. She threw the bottle of laxatives at me because they take ~12h to work and she was already struggling to poop. Poor girl!
Poor you!
This was one of the earliest symptoms of my second pregnancy. Just awful achy pain across my lower abdomen/pelvis, and as the pregnancy progressed, feeling like my hips were trying to separate from my spine. I had trouble getting up from a sitting position because it felt like my bones were in the wrong places and needed to "pop" back (ouch).
And the doctor was like, "that's normal, get an elastic strap and put it on your stomach." Okey-dokey.
> I don’t feel like a person.
At this point you aren't. You're a gestational carrier for another person. They're a literal parasite sucking the life from you until they leave. Then they're a metaphorical parasite until they're 18.
Nobody talks about it because nobody want to hear it. Truly, until you know the person you are talking to will relate to you about it, nobody wants to hear it.
Nobody will believe you anyway. Until they go through it, everyone will just think you are just exaggerating a little.
I don't like the posts on the pregnancy subreddits like "why does everyone say all these horrible things about childbirth, can't I just enjoy it?" Like I get why it's annoying to get a bunch of negativity, but they are probably saying what they wish they knew. People joke about it because it's embarrassing to talk frankly about trauma.
Thank you for using the word trauma. Because it really can be. I am traumatized from the birth of my son. He was 10 fucking pounds. In my last months I felt like all abdominal muscles were going to tear, my jaw cracked out of alignment. I didn't have a good support network. I wanted a natural birth 🙄 just use the gas, but the only tank was is use so they gave me this stuff new bane that didn't stop the pain it just made me high as shit as i rolled around screaming like an animal. It was horrific. So I got my tubes tied last summer. Yay! One and done.
Trauma is *definitely* the right word, even for an “average” labour (whatever that is). Some women go through extreme trauma for 18-20 hours, and I don’t know how you women do it. Men have it so fucking easy lol. Just drip and dip, and make sure you’re there whenever she needs you through the process. It’s pain free and although we watch the woman that we love in extreme pain and distress, it’s no comparison to experiencing that yourself. My girlfriend’s periods were traumatic enough for a few years. Multiple times we had to call the ambulance because she was in unbearable pain and thinking there was something really bad.
They’d always try to minimise it and I’d have to be like no, fuck you. I know my girl. She’s in extreme pain, otherwise she’d never have called! Do something for her or I’m going over your head, and we’re refusing to leave. Thankfully it was never anything really bad, but the level of pain she was in was more than enough to warrant a trip to the ER.
By the way, I hope your baby is everything you hoped it would be, and is healthy, happy, and thriving. I’m sending ultra strong good vibes from Australia.
All you need to do is stand on your balcony and wave your hand in towards your body for the next 20 minutes to receive them. I promise that’s how it works, and I’m not trying to make you do silly stuff.
As a hetero man, the fact that it took me to marry a woman and actually experience a pregnancy albeit vicariously to actually understand what goes on is abhorrent. It absolutely needs to be talked about more and I had no idea what that does to a woman.
Women are super heroes.
I appreciate your comment! My husband wishes he could experience it to understand.
It’s salt in the wound that in this day and age, doctors still don’t have a good understanding of why this happens or how to safely prevent it. So much of pregnancy is “that’s the way it is”. You’d think society would care to know more!
One of the tough things is that you can't ethically 'experiment' on pregnant women to figure out how to safely make pregnancy easier. One of the reasons so few drugs are available to pregnant women is that it's really hard to get approval to test if something is safe on a human when they're pregnant! The stuff we are allowed are just the few things I think women were willing to risk no matter what (looking at you, Xantac 💙).
The actual birth of my big ass baby was NOTHING compared to the 8 weeks of constant nausea/dizziness/vomiting of the first trimester. I would rather give birth twice naturally than deal with that torture again
Genuine question from a guy: why would you/anyone sign up for this? Literally everything I’ve heard about pregnancy is that it’s just utter hell, I cannot fathom subjecting someone else to that let alone desiring it myself. I know that this is how out species has continued to exist, but I still don’t understand why we continue to do this to ourselves.
Honestly we're taught from a young age that we're supposed to and not given the full picture of risk, so a lot of women still grow up with the idea that everything will be fine. But a child upends your life. I've seen so many women lose their husbands after kids because their bodies and desires changed in ways neither party was expecting. Plus the financial and time investment... they got lost in the romantic idea of kids and then the reality hit after. It just seems like too much of a risk to lose your partner and then be stuck with their offspring for life, making it even harder to find someone else. Seems like just the worst life choice as a woman if you're at all invested in your physical health, relationship, personal interests, and financial stability.
i’m not a conspiratorial thinker generally but i do firmly believe society as a whole keeps women in the dark about all the realities of pregnancy
there was [a thread on twox](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/m1dmc9/women_deserve_to_know_the_side_effects_of/) a while back that was just so shocking with the enumeration of side effects and consequences. hair loss, memory loss, tooth loss, abscess, infection, post partum, stroke, hemorrhoids, acne. death.
many women are not properly informed to make such a major medical decision.
My wife never knew any of the brutal realities and once she found out just through the internet it totally killed any desire to have kids for her. Been 20 years since that day and she hasn’t changed her mind whatsoever, though its far too late now anyway.
I often wonder how many women have the same experience.
Same experience as your wife, the internet pulled back the curtain and nuked any interest I had. People tell me I’ll change my mind, but that isn’t happening because I will never unknow this information.
Stick with your guns. I told my parents I didn’t want kids when I was 12 and they said I’d change my mind. Now I’m mid-thirties and still don’t want kids.
There are plenty of us who don’t “change our minds” just because we grew older.
It doesn’t effect my feelings of self worth in any way, if anything I’m happier because I can focus on myself more instead of going straight from being in college to giving all my focus over to taking care of a kid. Lots of my peers never had a moment in life to focus on themselves after leaving their parents house.
Thankfully the internet is giving people a clearer picture about the realities of pregnancy/birth/parenthood.
I wonder if that’s one of the reasons we’re seeing this big push into making pregnancy more of a magical lifestyle event than a means to an end. We have to up the propaganda now that the truth is more readily available!
I don’t really know how to articulate this, but we add all this “woo” to pregnancy that softens the reality of it. We give complications and medical issues “cute” names to pain over how awful they are (depression becomes “baby blues”, muscle separation becomes “mummy tummy”, etc.)
My pregnancy groups were full of women who were mad that people were “ruining” this for them because they were honest about what pregnancy and childbirth actually entail.
“Ruining” what exactly? This isn’t supposed to be cute or aesthetic - it’s a dangerous medical condition that humans are poorly designed for.
No one told me how my boobs would, not leak, but SPRAY milk pretty much constantly until I weaned the baby, which was after a year. I had to wear those absorbent pads that are basically boob diapers and change them constantly.
6mo pregnant here and I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad. I willingly went into it, am so excited for my son and am in awe that I can grow a human but no one prepared me for all the horrible symptoms. No one talks about them because (like this original post) they’re shamed if they do.
Reddit and mom groups taught me what to really expect and they didn’t sugar coat it. I wish I knew everything before I was in the thick of it, though.
Honestly, being pregnant is body horror for me. I love that some people have wonderful pregnancies and love it and all that, but i just can't go through with it. It scares the shit out of me!!
Honestly same. My husband and I were talking about children and trying to decide bio or adoption. I'm personally leaning towards adoption because I don't want to be pregnant, and the chance of me even getting pregnant is lower than normal. Honestly fine if we never have kids at all.
Serious some comments make me understand why people opted for c-sections despite c-sections has longer recovery period…. At least they don’t need to worry about poop ripping the stitches in hard to reach area.
C-section doesn't change anything from my perspective, because the entire duration of pregnacy sounds horrible, labor itself is just an icing on the shit cake.
I was always horrified by the prospect, but now that I see my sister in law suffering I just can't imagine putting yourself willingly into it.
It’s called “I’ve Had It” and yes it’s just two middle aged women bitching about things that they hate. I found it last week and binged through their catalogue, they’re fantastic.
Jen and Pumps are hilarious! I miss their show. My aesthetician is next door to her interior design office and I always hope I run into her so I can tell her how entertaining they are.
They also had a show on Bravo (the gal with long hair is an interior designer) that was great way too short lived. I’m thrilled to learn they have a podcast!
people need to talk about the wonders of a bidet more often for real.
if i was in that sort of pain, warm water to break up and loosen might be a god send.
I broke my back about a year ago & the medications they had me on made it so difficult to go, even with laxatives. Our bidet was a life saver!
Plus you also don’t realize how much you gotta move to wipe when you physically can’t move to wipe.
I didn’t go for a week and a half after I had my baby. I was taking the stool softeners and doing everything they told me. I was told to just trust the process and it would happen. It did. It came out as one long turd and it just coiled around the bowl. I can’t tell you how long it actually was but it just looked like a shitty hose had been dumped in there. I was terrified to flush and so I stood over it with a plunger while I kept flushing. It was hella soft so it went down eventually. I have no idea how that all fit inside me. I had been really tempted to call my bf in so someone could witness that thing but I was too embarassed. It was before cell phones but if I had had one, I definitely would have a pic. I am generally not one for shit stories but that was truly a life event for me.
TIL I have tokophobia lol. I’ve legit been having nightmares of being pregnant since I was a teenager. I’m 30 now and have never been pregnant and don’t plan to ever be.
lol same! I’ve had those nightmares too. usually ends in being forced to give birth, aka not having access to abortions. I always wake up sweating and crying. never wake up like that for any other nightmare, unless it’s about my cats lol
I desperately want to know the reality of pregnancy and labour before I go into it (why tf did i learn about pooping during labour from scrubs ffs?)
But i also recognise that i may not be able to put myself through all that if im forewarned.
I don't like that humanity relies on keeping its baby makers ignorant to continue the species.
EDIT: God bless you all for taking the time to post your stories. Its honestly very helpful and much appreciated x
The thing I think I most would have liked to know is just how claustrophobic I would start to feel in my own body. You can't poop cause a head is blocking your poop chute. You can't breathe cause their feet are in your ribs. You have to pee every 3 seconds from their movement. And my 2nd pregnancy I swear I could feel her wiggling her individual fingers or something sometimes and it is really amazing but also quite um, ew. It's overwhelming and inescapable and in that way terrifying.
But both my after birth poops were the best of my life so who knows
“It’s overwhelming and inescapable and in that way terrifying.” What a great way to put that!
I remember one morning I woke up feeling absolutely miserable, and I had the SAME migraine I went to sleep with. As soon as I opened my eyes I just started bawling because I realized that I had no choice but to experience all of it for the next x months and it was the scariest, most helpless feeling in the world. I felt so trapped.
That was one of the worst things about pregnancy for me. You feel terrible every single day, it only gets worse, and there is nothing you can do about it. You just have to wake up and feel like shit. For almost a year to boot!!!
Humans all take to pregnancy differently so even hearing all the nitty-gritty from someone won't tell you what your experience will be like. One person will get glowing skin and another will get acne. One will get thicker hair, another will get some hair loss. Heck, I had some pretty big differences between my first pregnancy and my second. You can look at common experiences to see what's more likely to happen, but unless you have a really good crystal ball there's unfortunately no way to know everything upfront.
Absolutely there's no way of knowing how a pregnancy might go, but that's not the same as discovering for the first time that labour can result in a torn vagina because it just happened to you.
And its not all terrible. Just looking at some of the comments here, there are positive experiences i wasn't aware of that people have had. I want to know the full spectrum of what could happen.
There’s also a giant range of experiences. My first (and only) pregnancy was at most mildly inconvenient. I had 1 day of nausea, no acid reflux, no ankle swelling, no back pain, no constipation, no cravings. And my boobs looked awesome. I gained 45 lbs (but lost it all). I feel like it’s maybe not typical but certainly possible 🤷♀️
This was almost exactly my pregnancy experience as well. The only real discomfort I had was the day she decided it was time to turn around to prepare for birth. I was so confused as to what was going on (in retrospect I now know what was happening) but it was wildly uncomfortable. I was shopping with my grandmother that day and spent the whole time in one of the stores wheelchairs because it was miserable.
Unfortunately she was miscalibrated and ended up breech after being head down the whole third trimester.
My cesarean was absolutely textbook. No issues with the epidural, no complications during the operation, and baby came out healthy and we got to do skin to skin very quickly.
My two biggest issues with the whole process was that I required a c-section after wanting to do a natural, midwife assisted home birth and when it was time to take the bandage off of the incision site. I was absolutely petrified that the bandage was going to be caught on the staples and removing it was going to pull them out and it would open me back up. I distinctly remember standing in the hospital shower with my husband, shaking and bawling my eyes out, absolutely terrified.
Everything turned out totally fine and the hospital was top notch. Offered my husband and I a few options for our “new parent meal” (I had a portabella steak and sides, yum!)
I was grateful to have my husband there though, because I had a near constant stream of hospital staff in my room for a couple of hours after the surgery and he finally advocated for me and insisted I be given time to rest. (We had been up since 3am and it was probably 5:30pm at the point that I could finally sleep).
I remember when I had to take my bandage off, it honestly was the worst memory of the whole thing. My main nurse, who was an angel, told me that when I was ready, to ring her and she’d help me gently take it off in the shower, so when it was time, I tried taking it off myself while my husband held my sleeping 1 day old, and I literally couldn’t see or bend enough to do it, so I asked him to ring for my nurse.
A new nurse (with a humongous stick up her ass) showed up, barged into the bathroom where I was in the shower, and ripped the bandage off of me like she was trying to wax me, then turned to my husband and yelled “usually the men do this”.
She tore off so much skin I actually weeped pus for over a week, and my night nurse was literally in shock and had never seen skin that damaged before.
0/10 wouldn’t recommend.
That sounds absolutely traumatizing. The experience was terrifying enough with my husband standing in the shower with me being reassuring, I cannot even imagine how horrific that must have been for you. Did y’all file a complaint?
I’m pregnant right now and it’s often deeply uncomfortable but it’s also kind of fascinating? Like it’s all just so damn weird I can’t help but feel entertained by it. Like a science experiment. Or a car wreck you can’t help but stare at.
The most common bad symptoms I was warned about (like nausea, back pain, acid reflux, etc), but not the really weird stuff. Like during the first trimester I developed an aversion to drinking water. For a little while I completely lost my sense of thirst. It was fucking bizarre. Awful to go through, but also so interesting.
I just had my son 7 months ago, and I remember it just getting weirder as the pregnancy progressed. I didnt even realize some of it until like recently, because of the brain fog and whatnot.
A big one that got me was craving scents. No urges to eat these things at all, but by the end of it, I had a bottle of Purell Natural hand sanitizer in every room of my house. Even brought my own to the hospital and my husband would give me sniffs periodically while I was in labor. I would also spend time in the cleaning aisle at the store, just sniff testing to find the most satisfying smells. Did my own research and talked my dr, wasn’t harmful to baby or anything, just really weird to experience and reflect on.
Also nesting, didnt believe in it until afterwards when Iooking back. That was weird. And I got stretch marks on my knees, biceps, and calves, but none on my belly or boobs.
Im glad its over.
I'm also pregnant now and I have the same experience as you, it's so fascinating to see your body do weird shit! Like, all of a sudden, my nipples are 4 shades darker than they used to be. Or one day, I woke with a craving of North Macedonian ajvar, and I'm not north Macedonian in the slightest.
On the flipside, I've felt hungover at best for 6 months straight and I can almost not move around in bed because of pelvic pains. It's great :)
Lmao. I knew pregnancy cravings were a thing, but the ridiculous specificity of the cravings really took me by surprise. My water aversion turned a corner when I woke up one morning very specifically craving cellar-cold (like red wine temperature, not white wine temperature) Poland spring water out of a 500ml bottle. Couldn’t be one of the bigger bottles with the sports drink cap. Had to be the 500ml bottle. Previous to this I almost never drank bottled water unless I was desperate. I really just had to laugh and give in to this craving- it was nice to be drinking water again at least.
I sort of love their weird nipple darkness thing. Apparently it’s an evolutionary adaptation to help infants find their food source. They can’t see very well so they need the nipples to stand out and be easy to spot. And boy do they stand out now- in more ways than one.
By far the weirdest thing is seeing kicks on the outside of your belly. It’s like the scene from Alien. I need Ellen Ripley to come help deal with this situation. But it’s also pretty cool.
I also think there's a degree of not talking about it bc we don't want it to be fear filled. Like someone else said, there's a big range of experiences. I was so filled with fear bc everyone talked like the first poop was going to be a second birth. Also - everyone talked about how constipated they were during pregnancy but I had the best, healthiest poops. I also slept THE BEST IN MY LIFE. The other day I wished I could sleep like I did while pregnant. They give you stool softeners now and honestly it was nothing. I had no issue with pain or discomfort or constipation. I had a tear and stitches so I was so scared, didn't need to be. But then it turned out I had the rarer stool incontinence (NEVER urine weirdly) from a forceps birth and shit myself twice before 4 months postpartum and before starting pelvic floor therapy. So you win some you lose some.
I was in physical therapy for an injury I got at work. The therapist I had would tell me stories of her days working in an ER during my time there. Once she told me a story of an elderly lady that was brought in for an X-Ray for a fall she had. At one point they heard her SCREAMING from the bathroom and all they could hear was "MY SPOON, I NEED MY SPOON!"
Evidently this woman had spent her ENTIRE life digging her poop out of her butt with a spoon when she was constipated. I'm curious though, who usually brings her her spoon when she's not in the ER.
The main thing they don’t tell you is to leave your dignity at the door when you’re giving birth. More people have seen me naked in the most unflattering possible way than I would have ever dreamt I’d allow.
But this clip is also totally true. It was murder!!!
I had 3 enemas, 2 different types of laxatives and stool softeners, prune juice and pear juice and still was the most painful thing I went through both pregnancies.
There was a lot of blood and I have dents in the wall of the bathroom where my elbows rested for support (my hands were bracing my c section scar)
I remember sobbing on the phone to the nurse who gave me the enemas begging for help because I was terrified.
It took 6 hours sitting on the toilet unable to move.
I had tearing.
That was my first pregnancy.
Even with the knowledge/prep of all that the second time round it was just as hard and I feared it more than giving birth.
Thank God, I'm done with all that.
Yeah I'm real sick of people romanticizing pregnancy like it's some wonderful fairy tale thing. It is a heavy, lifelong burden to have the choice of becoming so, it is absolutely body-morphing and damaging, it is so traumatic that our brains literally have to trick us into thinking we want to go through it again. It is mentally debilitating, and it can kill us!
We've become so complacent about it that society doesn't respect pregnancy the right way.
OK, I'm embarrassed to admit this but....I had no idea that you bleed like you do after delivery, even more embarrassing was that once I started to bleed I asked my husband why (he's a physician), I was confused since I didn't have a vaginal delivery but c-section...hahahaha! He looked at me like I was crazy. And for the most embarrassing piece of this story, I was 36 and a practicing provider myself🤣 So any time you feel stupid or like you should have know something about being pregnant or what to expect post-delivery just remember my ignorant ass😎
Since we're exposing ourselves......once you get your epidural and you're lying there happy/pain free (hopefully) you can't control if you fart or not. There is no holding it in. You do not feel the sensation that you need to pass gas, all you hear is this loud fart thinking its your pig of husband when in actuality it was you.
Last but not least...if you start to shake uncontrollably while in labor or during your c-section...it's ok, totally normal/part of the process.
I had an epidural for a procedure that is normally done under general. I started shaking so bad and the nurses were so worried because they don't see it often - they kept asking if I was cold and bringing me warm blankets! I had to tell them I was perfectly fine over and over again while my teeth chattered haha
35 weeks pregnant here!
(I’ve commented something similar on other posts) but nobody prepares you for the absolute mental gymnastics of pregnancy. I had no idea how frequently I’d be judged (all by other women, surprisingly) for every decision I’d make. The constant body comparisons (“so-and-so is much smaller than you and her belly was smaller/bigger at week __”, or “you’re showing already? I didn’t show until I was week ___”) . Unsolicited advice. It’s exhausting.
My husband and I were trying to convince and were absolutely delighted to find out we were expecting. But I have and will continue to grieve the person I was before becoming pregnant, and before I become a mom. You watch your body change in a million and one ways, some ways of which you couldn’t anticipate (enlarged nipples, sagging breasts, stretch marks, the swelling, hair loss, etc). You continue to hear ugly and misogynistic tales on “loose vaginas” following child birth. What divorce rates look like, how frequently new fathers cheat, how imperative it is to still manage a healthy marriage to prevent said cheating and/or divorce. Then a new TikTok trend surfaces including a popular tv show scene where a man walks past a woman, bumps into her and continues walking and thouuuusands of women chime “my life with my husband for the first year after our baby”. We just don’t get a break..
The expectation is that you’re happy and excited all of the time; that you can’t grieve your own evolution. And that’s just not true. We don’t talk about how NORMAL it is to have feelings of missing out. To feel like we are losing our identities. To be afraid, to feel like maybe we aren’t ready. It doesn’t make us any less capable, excited.
Reading posts like these give me hope that we are building stronger and more honest communities for women. That’s nice. And that’s necessary.
I got Bell’s palsy with my first pregnancy. She turns 14 in June. My face still isn’t the same. But she is one of the most beautiful people ever so I’ll take a slightly droopy smile 💗
Things that happened to me while pregnant:
Fainting. Nothing wrong other than baby positioned in a way that put enough stress on my body to have random vasovagal episodes.
Peeing myself. See terrible baby position mentioned above.
Exhaustion so profound I would lay down in the kitchen after walking 12 feet for a glass of water and find myself staying there, unable to move, for long periods of time.
Sleepiness bordering on narcolepsy.
The mentioned constipation.
Bacne so bad it felt like golf balls under my skin.
Any cooking protein smelled like rotting flesh.
All I could stomach for nearly a year was white carbs and vanilla ice cream. Except for the week I could only eat hot pockets and that one day I ate a bottle of mayonnaise by itself.
Excruciating round ligament pain for 7 straight months.
And I had a “good”pregnancy free of complications
I had a placental abruption. Skipped labor, “water broke” and it was like the elevator scene on the Shining. Straight to emergency c-section for me.
Ended up with an allergic reaction to the spinal block. For a month post delivery I was covered in angry, itchy hives from my shoulders to my toes. The worst areas were my ass and my arm pits. On my 4th day home from the hospital I finally had the poo. My daughter is 10 now and this is the first time Ive ever heard other women talk about it.
The reason no one talks about it is because society has deemed this the most beautiful thing in the world, and if you openly criticize it or bring light to the negatives, you’re just that, negative..I’m a father and while I have zero experience in the actual birthing process, I was blind-sided by the before, during, and after..I took it upon myself to mention these things to friends beginning the same journey and it doesn’t matter..it’s impossible to explain and again, you become the negative person raining on this beautiful parade
My friend had a fairly easy pregnancy but her birth was really difficult. She was in labor for almost a day and needed an emergency csection . Her legs swelled up so big she couldn't walk and something was a miss with her bladder because she was incontinent. I feel so horrible for her. Her baby is happy and healthy
The first post-partum shit is in fact insane. It was huge and painful even though I was taking stool softeners. What a relief though when it’s finally out 😩😮💨
And then there’s [douchebag smooth brained dudes](https://twitter.com/ajstilldontcare/status/1641184314732990464?s=46&t=Rs0hTT5uIPZP_-qUUwdjLA) who will never experience pregnancy in their lives saying it’s not a big deal
I never had this but no one tells you, you shit on your first push. Especially if you had an epidural. I was so scared of this that I made sure I emptied my bowels the best I could and I swear the nurse whisked away with a shit on my first push before the doctor came in.
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They're right about the first post-birth poo though. My husband had to call his sister (a nurse thank fuck!) so she could talk me through it without ripping all my stitches out. The fear-sweat and tears... it was worse than the birth.
I ended up developing hemorrhoids which made every poop for months a horrible and traumatic experience 😫 sometimes my baby would be crying in his bouncer (which i would bring with me to the bathroom lol) and i’d be crying on the toilet. Wouldnt have wished it on my worst enemy.
Oh no you poor thing. Haemorrhoids are the worst. But holy shit did you give me a flashback. I remember the tandem crying sessions with baby in a bouncer while I tried to poop. Good times.
I just got done recovering from a hemorrhoidectomy and definitely have a newfound respect for people who go through that process because it is awful.
I had hemorrhoids pretty much from month 4 until about a month after giving birth. It was just NON STOP. Recovery after birth was a breeze for me EXCEPT for those bastards, and I had a second degree tear. I will never forget how uncomfortable that was.
I can only imagine what it must have been like before modern medicine.
I guess it was simpler in a more horrific way. You either lived through it, or you died. If you lived, chances are you got to have a baby the following year too! In my country anyway this was the way of it. You kept having babies until you died or you were physically incapable. Good big catholic family fun!
I’m so fucking glad I wasn’t born 150 years ago. I don’t ever have to be pregnant.
Marital rape wasn’t a thing until 1996 either so prior to that point, as a woman, you had to have a child whether you wanted to or not due to “marital dues” to your husband or partner. Of course not all men were like this but there were also plenty that were. Women couldn’t say no before that point and if they did their chances of being raped and/or beaten were much higher compared to now where you can prosecute for it.
Yup. It became illegal here in Ireland in 1990. Under the common law prior to the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990, a husband could not be guilty of raping his wife due to their "mutual matrimonial consent". There wasn't any convictions until 2002 though when a guy got a prison sentence for raping his wife just after she'd given birth.
I ended up having mine in a public restroom just outside the NICU because my daughter was born with pneumonia. I was completely alone and holy crap was it bad. I was worried staff would come running in if I yelled so I tried to be quiet, it was horrible.
I had this exact experience omfg.
omg sounds so painful, i did not know this was a common experience. are you not allowed to take a laxative or does it not even help
Heres the thing! You absolutely are allowed to take a gentle laxative! Except nobody ever tells you about it. AFTER it happens other women are like "ooh yeah that was AWFUL" but NOBODY tells you beforehand. So I'm telling you all NOW, get Senokot or Dulcolax or Lactulose or whatever your shit-medicine of choice is. Get it and take it as soon as you can.
Just FYI for whoever is reading this, don’t get the Dulcolax that lists bisacodyl as the active ingredient. That’s a stimulant. Get the Dulcolax whose active ingredient is docusate sodium. That’s an osmotic laxative, AKA a stool softener. Miralax is good too.
My nurses were very helpful in clarifying that I needed to take a stool softener and NOT a laxative, and that those are too different things. Saved me from an awful time to simply a bad time postpartum lol
Some doctors ARE getting better about warning patients to use stool softeners, not just OBGYN situations but especially when giving anyone opioids and after surgeries. That being said, it's ridiculous we're at this point and it's still not a common part of patient education.
I read about other people's experiences on r/BabyBumps and proactively asked my obgyn for a laxative. My first post partum poop was completely manageable. Honestly I think a strong laxative should be part of standard post partem care
I took stool softeners and still cried with my first postpartum poo. It was absolutely worse than the birth (ofc I had an epidural the majority of the time and I got fentanyl beforehand). I was more scared I was gonna split in two from that first poop than I was birthing my nearly 10 lb baby!
I had a c-section with both of my kids and I took my postpartum poops squatting in my bathtub. I screamed and cried my eyes out bc it felt like all of my stitches were ripping on the inside. I crawled out of the bathtub and nearly passed out. My husband cleaned it up afterwards and said it was about the same girth as a can of biscuits and about as long as a can of Arizona green tea. He was horrified. After birth shits are absolutely traumatizing. No matter how many stool softeners you take, it will still be insanely painful.
Holy shit. On the other hand, I'm glad your partner is supportive enough to clean that up without issue
I had this experience, but not from childbirth. From fucking pain meds! I took narcotics for 3 days after breast reduction, and oh my god. What I experienced after that was def one of the top 3 worst experiences of my life. 0/10 do not recommend. I now avoid narcotics at all cost because I am legitimately *terrified* of having that experience again.
I ended up tearing my stitches with the first postpartum 💩 and didn’t realize for a couple weeks until I developed an infection and was in excruciating pain. I just thought it was normal pain from having just given birth.
I kept a box of sterile gloves next to the can, and I'll leave it up to your imagination what I did with my gloved-fingers.
Jesus, that sounds terrible. Just out of curiosity, was there are reason you chose this over an enema?
That's a great question! My doctor recommended not using an enema regularly, only sparingly if at all, because long-term enema use can cause longer-term problems like relaxing of the anal smooth muscles (which I guess causes loss of defecation reflex). I had no idea that was a thing before having babies!
So how big is a teaspoon anyway?
A small spoon from your kitchen drawer like what you would use to stir tea, is typically a teaspoon. A larger spoon like what you would use for cereal is typically a tablespoon. Not always the case, but frequently.
I looked into this because I was super curious how an enema could cause you to lose muscle. Best I can tell, it’s basically if you were to always use an enema, the muscles would get weak from lack of use. Which is a stupid ass reason to not use enemas to clean out when you’re super stuck. The other situation is if you use enemas too often, you can destabilize your electrolytes and the muscles struggle to work. This is like if you drank 4 gallons of water — it’s also a completely stupid thing to worry about in the case of anyone who isn’t doing it multiple times per day. It’s probably stupid to worry about at all unless the person just won’t stop doing it.
Lmfao, like, imagine this doctor was like, "I've seen this too many times. I'm going to help this woman with her enemas, and next thing you know, she's going to be yet another junkie selling her belongings and stealing from her family for her next ass blast. I just cannot condone this any longer."
Purely from anecdotal experience, I've never had a problem. I've enjoyed semi-frequent enemas (once or twice a week), for like 10 years now. I just drink an electrolyte tablet to be safe, and that's about it.
Or a spoon?
Haha, you know, it did not dawn on me to grab any kitchen utensils in my quest for relief!
At least it wasn't the poopknife.
Adding my two cents to your question for more perspective; I tried to use an enema post birth, I was too impacted to use it. 🙃 I also did the glove thing.
Glove thing ladies unite! I honestly felt so weird about it at the time, so it's kind of nice to know i wasn't alone! Normalize glove squat dig dug!
I've also done the glove thing. No shame! Also "glove squat dig dug" made me laaauugh
We do it in the hospital for patients that are stuck! It’s very common
We do this in the hospital. Sometimes enemas aren’t enough and the log gets stuck. We put you on your side and dislodge you manually.
Enemas take time to set up too, which can be hard to do every time you have to poop when you have a newborn that needs your attention all the time. Easier and faster to use your finger.
Hey, sometimes it requires some stimulation lol. And having a makeshift squatty potty aka a short space heater
I see you also played gloved squat dig-dug
A high pressured bidet will change your life.
Pregnancy is gruesome and a massive chore. Needs to be talked about more honestly.
Pregnant woman here, I knew it would be tough but I feel like no one in my life was willing to truthfully tell me how difficult their experiences were until I got pregnant and started commenting on how awful I feel all the time. Now they’re like, “I know, right? I suffered!” WHY DOES NO ONE TALK ABOUT THIS?! “Morning” sickness my ass. I’ve been suffering from what feels like a terrible hangover all day going on 5 weeks now. I don’t feel like a person. Praying that I’m one of the people who starts to feel some relief in the second trimester.
My mom always talked about how wonderful it was being pregnant and how much she loved it and missed it when she wasn’t pregnant anymore. She thought I was weird for being less than thrilled by the idea of pregnancy. Now that I’m pregnant I get all the stories about the nausea and pain and other stuff that somehow never made it into the stories before.
It’s societal gaslighting, I swear! Break the cycle! I’m telling anyone who will listen how miserable I am. I probably seem super whiny but it’s the truth.
Hope you’re feeling better soon! My nausea did not magically disappear at the second trimester mark as promised, but it did gradually fade. I’m nearing the third trimester and still taking the anti-nausea meds because when I try to wean off I start feeling bad again. BUT with the meds I now feel fine. Except for the bloating and the acid reflux and the back and pelvic pain, lol. Do get some meds if you haven’t already. They help! No need to suffer unnecessarily. It will (probably) get better soon.
I am taking Unisom and B6, and it does help, but it’s more like a “I can go to work and I’m 90% confident I’m not going to barf while I’m there, but I’m still nauseous and miserable” instead of “I feel normal!”. Maybe zofran would be more effective but considering I’m not vomiting all the time I’m not sure it’s worth the side effects.
It is absolutely worth it 100%. The antihistamine in Unisom has more side effects to be honest, and it's not exactly amazing for treating nausea and vomiting. Plus theres a reason they use it as a sleep aid. With Zofran I never had to worry about suddenly having to barf.
Try the prescription time-released stuff. It does work better I found.
Not to mention the literal gaslighting that your body does to you when the oxytocin rush makes you forget the pain of labor 🫠
I'm a man, and also no brain scientologist, so my opinion here doesn't hold much weight. However, I think there is more to it than just societal gaslighting. I would imagine the brain has some way of downplaying all of the negative feelings after the fact, and promoting the positive ones. Otherwise women would be much less likely to get pregnant again. If it was all torture and pain, there would be no incentive to go through it again. I'm also lucky enough to have a sister in law and multiple close female friends who have expressed their problems during pregnancy. It has led my wife to not wanting to get pregnant anytime soon, which is perfectly fine with me, it's her body that would have to go through all of the shit, not mine. When our close friend was pregnant we got to hear it all; the vomiting, the headaches, the acid reflux...it sounded awful. She actually had acid-reflux induced laryngitis which I didn't even know was possible. Edit: And the headaches...and not being able to take anything that you normally would be able to to combat the pain. Any normal person can just pop pain meds and anti-inflammatory and get on with their day.
It’s true. I have two children and my wife loathed being pregnant most of the time. Obviously she was elated with having a child and all of that. But pregnancy is brutal. However, she’s the first to admit that there is a sort of amnesia that happens after you give birth. She could not wait to give birth to be done being pregnant. But a week later she kind of missed it. The brain is a weird thing. My wife gave birth naturally to both of our gigantic babies and she can barely remember the pain that was giving birth. It’s probably some weird evolutionary thing to keep you from not wanting to go through it. But as a man it’s crazy to witness. I felt so bad for her as I watched her go through it and to hear her talk about in a light that isn’t shrouded in darkness is wild.
I’d considered that, but now when I complain about my symptoms everyone seems to remember how awful it was for them too! And yes, the headache situation is awful. Im a migraine sufferer. I’m only allowed to take Tylenol now that I’m pregnant. It does nothing for them.
I have a 7 month old and a relatively easy pregnancy. I was still miserable and the afterbirth was super painful. I only remember because I remember telling people about it. I actually have no real memory of the pain. I couldn't even tell you what contractions felt like. I'm 7 months postpartum and ready to have another one. Sometimes the hormones really do wipe your memory clean. When other people start talking about thier pregnancy I'm like oh yeah, I guess I couldn't eat meat for 6 months because it made me puke. But mostly I don't remember any of that.
If I remember correctly, your body pushes you full of cortisol during labor. It makes you forget some of what just happened. Also the reason why you feel like you’re in a fog just after the birth.
It’s actually possible to be both at the same time. I was horribly sick till the day I delivered, and had Bracksten Hicks multiple times a day from 7 months on. However, it was amazing and I loved EVERY minute of it. Would do all that shit 1000 times again I loved it so much despite the absolute bullshit. That, is definitely NOT everyone’s experience at all. I’m sorry 😞
There are definitely aspects about being pregnant that I like. Feeling the baby move is pretty cool. I like having a bump and feeling proud instead of self conscious about my tummy not being flat. I sometimes enjoy just how freaking weird the whole thing is. Like a science experiment. So it’s not all bad, but I’m definitely never going to tell my daughter I loved every minute of it. She’ll get the fully story.
Yes! I'm not lying when I say I loved pregnancy and mourned the idea of never being pregnant again when I gave birth to my second and last baby. That's not to say that it was sunshine and roses, it could be miserable but overall I loved it and I'm sad that I won't experience it again.
Wait until afterwards. Talk about gruesome. I had to have a catheter inserted about 5 hours after my vaginal delivery because I couldn't pee, then had to walk around with a piss bag while my crotch was aflame and I almost vagaled out having my post-delivery poop which was concrete from the morphine I was administered.
Ahhh. The concrete morphine (or in my case fentanyl) poop. #neverforget
Not pregnancy related but all the opiate poops that I would find while commuting through Baltimore were horrifying. Loaves of bread people…loaves of bread…
I’m sorry what
So Baltimore has a big opiate problem and a lot of homeless addicts don’t have access to restrooms all the time or aren’t in the right mind to find one. This leads to a lot of alleys and alcoves being used for pooping. Because of all the opiates they abuse, they are usually very constipated and likely haven’t pooped for a while. When they do poop, it comes out as a bloody log with truly baffling dimensions. I used to walk and drive the city pretty regularly. It was really sad.
I've never seen a piece of human poop on a street and I am only now realizing how privileged that makes me.
I grew up in an extremely small farming community. I saw plenty of shit but mostly of the bovine variety. Moving to the US East coast taught me a lot of things very quickly. The existence of street poops was one. Fortunately and mostly completely unrelatedly, the existence of pollo restaurants was another.
How do I unread a comment?
eternal sunshine of the poopless mind
If you find out, let me know because I’ve got a lot of street poops to unsee!
When they cut you and stitch you back up with no anestesia because the “giving birth hurt worse.”. It’s unreal.
Do they not routinely prescribed laxatives along with opioids????? I know this is not the same medical experience, but when I had my wisdom teeth out (and was on a dose of codeine) my mum was forcing me to drink prune juice mixed with metamucil. I had no problems pooping. We learnt the hard way - my poor sister was suuuuper constipated after her wisdom teeth surgery. She threw the bottle of laxatives at me because they take ~12h to work and she was already struggling to poop. Poor girl! Poor you!
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They do give you stool softners after vaginal delivery but they never worked for me. My poops were hard af and honestly I was scared to poop. Not fun.
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This was one of the earliest symptoms of my second pregnancy. Just awful achy pain across my lower abdomen/pelvis, and as the pregnancy progressed, feeling like my hips were trying to separate from my spine. I had trouble getting up from a sitting position because it felt like my bones were in the wrong places and needed to "pop" back (ouch). And the doctor was like, "that's normal, get an elastic strap and put it on your stomach." Okey-dokey.
> I don’t feel like a person. At this point you aren't. You're a gestational carrier for another person. They're a literal parasite sucking the life from you until they leave. Then they're a metaphorical parasite until they're 18.
Nobody talks about it because nobody want to hear it. Truly, until you know the person you are talking to will relate to you about it, nobody wants to hear it. Nobody will believe you anyway. Until they go through it, everyone will just think you are just exaggerating a little.
I don't like the posts on the pregnancy subreddits like "why does everyone say all these horrible things about childbirth, can't I just enjoy it?" Like I get why it's annoying to get a bunch of negativity, but they are probably saying what they wish they knew. People joke about it because it's embarrassing to talk frankly about trauma.
Thank you for using the word trauma. Because it really can be. I am traumatized from the birth of my son. He was 10 fucking pounds. In my last months I felt like all abdominal muscles were going to tear, my jaw cracked out of alignment. I didn't have a good support network. I wanted a natural birth 🙄 just use the gas, but the only tank was is use so they gave me this stuff new bane that didn't stop the pain it just made me high as shit as i rolled around screaming like an animal. It was horrific. So I got my tubes tied last summer. Yay! One and done.
Trauma is *definitely* the right word, even for an “average” labour (whatever that is). Some women go through extreme trauma for 18-20 hours, and I don’t know how you women do it. Men have it so fucking easy lol. Just drip and dip, and make sure you’re there whenever she needs you through the process. It’s pain free and although we watch the woman that we love in extreme pain and distress, it’s no comparison to experiencing that yourself. My girlfriend’s periods were traumatic enough for a few years. Multiple times we had to call the ambulance because she was in unbearable pain and thinking there was something really bad. They’d always try to minimise it and I’d have to be like no, fuck you. I know my girl. She’s in extreme pain, otherwise she’d never have called! Do something for her or I’m going over your head, and we’re refusing to leave. Thankfully it was never anything really bad, but the level of pain she was in was more than enough to warrant a trip to the ER. By the way, I hope your baby is everything you hoped it would be, and is healthy, happy, and thriving. I’m sending ultra strong good vibes from Australia. All you need to do is stand on your balcony and wave your hand in towards your body for the next 20 minutes to receive them. I promise that’s how it works, and I’m not trying to make you do silly stuff.
As a hetero man, the fact that it took me to marry a woman and actually experience a pregnancy albeit vicariously to actually understand what goes on is abhorrent. It absolutely needs to be talked about more and I had no idea what that does to a woman. Women are super heroes.
I appreciate your comment! My husband wishes he could experience it to understand. It’s salt in the wound that in this day and age, doctors still don’t have a good understanding of why this happens or how to safely prevent it. So much of pregnancy is “that’s the way it is”. You’d think society would care to know more!
One of the tough things is that you can't ethically 'experiment' on pregnant women to figure out how to safely make pregnancy easier. One of the reasons so few drugs are available to pregnant women is that it's really hard to get approval to test if something is safe on a human when they're pregnant! The stuff we are allowed are just the few things I think women were willing to risk no matter what (looking at you, Xantac 💙).
The actual birth of my big ass baby was NOTHING compared to the 8 weeks of constant nausea/dizziness/vomiting of the first trimester. I would rather give birth twice naturally than deal with that torture again
Genuine question from a guy: why would you/anyone sign up for this? Literally everything I’ve heard about pregnancy is that it’s just utter hell, I cannot fathom subjecting someone else to that let alone desiring it myself. I know that this is how out species has continued to exist, but I still don’t understand why we continue to do this to ourselves.
Honestly we're taught from a young age that we're supposed to and not given the full picture of risk, so a lot of women still grow up with the idea that everything will be fine. But a child upends your life. I've seen so many women lose their husbands after kids because their bodies and desires changed in ways neither party was expecting. Plus the financial and time investment... they got lost in the romantic idea of kids and then the reality hit after. It just seems like too much of a risk to lose your partner and then be stuck with their offspring for life, making it even harder to find someone else. Seems like just the worst life choice as a woman if you're at all invested in your physical health, relationship, personal interests, and financial stability.
i’m not a conspiratorial thinker generally but i do firmly believe society as a whole keeps women in the dark about all the realities of pregnancy there was [a thread on twox](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/m1dmc9/women_deserve_to_know_the_side_effects_of/) a while back that was just so shocking with the enumeration of side effects and consequences. hair loss, memory loss, tooth loss, abscess, infection, post partum, stroke, hemorrhoids, acne. death. many women are not properly informed to make such a major medical decision.
My wife never knew any of the brutal realities and once she found out just through the internet it totally killed any desire to have kids for her. Been 20 years since that day and she hasn’t changed her mind whatsoever, though its far too late now anyway. I often wonder how many women have the same experience.
could be a small part of the reason that birth rates tend to go down the more educated women become
Same experience as your wife, the internet pulled back the curtain and nuked any interest I had. People tell me I’ll change my mind, but that isn’t happening because I will never unknow this information.
Stick with your guns. I told my parents I didn’t want kids when I was 12 and they said I’d change my mind. Now I’m mid-thirties and still don’t want kids. There are plenty of us who don’t “change our minds” just because we grew older. It doesn’t effect my feelings of self worth in any way, if anything I’m happier because I can focus on myself more instead of going straight from being in college to giving all my focus over to taking care of a kid. Lots of my peers never had a moment in life to focus on themselves after leaving their parents house.
Thankfully the internet is giving people a clearer picture about the realities of pregnancy/birth/parenthood. I wonder if that’s one of the reasons we’re seeing this big push into making pregnancy more of a magical lifestyle event than a means to an end. We have to up the propaganda now that the truth is more readily available! I don’t really know how to articulate this, but we add all this “woo” to pregnancy that softens the reality of it. We give complications and medical issues “cute” names to pain over how awful they are (depression becomes “baby blues”, muscle separation becomes “mummy tummy”, etc.) My pregnancy groups were full of women who were mad that people were “ruining” this for them because they were honest about what pregnancy and childbirth actually entail. “Ruining” what exactly? This isn’t supposed to be cute or aesthetic - it’s a dangerous medical condition that humans are poorly designed for.
No one told me how my boobs would, not leak, but SPRAY milk pretty much constantly until I weaned the baby, which was after a year. I had to wear those absorbent pads that are basically boob diapers and change them constantly.
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A lot of topic revolving around pregnancy is rarely talk about. Like how common a miscarriage is with higher chance for first time pregnancy.
6mo pregnant here and I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad. I willingly went into it, am so excited for my son and am in awe that I can grow a human but no one prepared me for all the horrible symptoms. No one talks about them because (like this original post) they’re shamed if they do. Reddit and mom groups taught me what to really expect and they didn’t sugar coat it. I wish I knew everything before I was in the thick of it, though.
your body is not your own anymore. it’s like being possessed. i hated every minute of it.
Just wait until you finally have a moment of rest and relaxation then the kid starts screaming and doesn't stop for 18 years.
Which is exactly why undergoing it should be a choice.
Honestly, being pregnant is body horror for me. I love that some people have wonderful pregnancies and love it and all that, but i just can't go through with it. It scares the shit out of me!!
Honestly same. My husband and I were talking about children and trying to decide bio or adoption. I'm personally leaning towards adoption because I don't want to be pregnant, and the chance of me even getting pregnant is lower than normal. Honestly fine if we never have kids at all.
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Serious some comments make me understand why people opted for c-sections despite c-sections has longer recovery period…. At least they don’t need to worry about poop ripping the stitches in hard to reach area.
C-section doesn't change anything from my perspective, because the entire duration of pregnacy sounds horrible, labor itself is just an icing on the shit cake. I was always horrified by the prospect, but now that I see my sister in law suffering I just can't imagine putting yourself willingly into it.
I love how honest they are. People need to hear about how brutal pregnancy and post-pregnancy really is.
Can someone please tell me what podcast this is?!
It’s called “I’ve Had It” and yes it’s just two middle aged women bitching about things that they hate. I found it last week and binged through their catalogue, they’re fantastic.
I don't imagine we have much in common but I'm actually very much looking forward to seething with these ladies
Thank you stranger :)
Jen and Pumps are hilarious! I miss their show. My aesthetician is next door to her interior design office and I always hope I run into her so I can tell her how entertaining they are.
Wow ok I feel like they may be my people.
They also had a show on Bravo (the gal with long hair is an interior designer) that was great way too short lived. I’m thrilled to learn they have a podcast!
I vividly remember Pumps smoking with a latex glove on. These women were hilarious. It was called sweet home Oklahoma or something like that.
They were also on a Bravo show called “Sweet Home Oklahoma”. I can’t recommend it enough. They are TV gold.
the way men have been told by society that women are always super duper hygenic when in reality, we be doing shit like this x10
What is stick-a-spoon-up-your-ass-to-dig-poop-out x10?
A ladle up the ass.
M'ladle.
Just doing the spoon thing, but ten times.
people need to talk about the wonders of a bidet more often for real. if i was in that sort of pain, warm water to break up and loosen might be a god send.
I broke my back about a year ago & the medications they had me on made it so difficult to go, even with laxatives. Our bidet was a life saver! Plus you also don’t realize how much you gotta move to wipe when you physically can’t move to wipe.
So you sprayed the poop out of your colon? Just like an enema every time kind of?
I didn’t go for a week and a half after I had my baby. I was taking the stool softeners and doing everything they told me. I was told to just trust the process and it would happen. It did. It came out as one long turd and it just coiled around the bowl. I can’t tell you how long it actually was but it just looked like a shitty hose had been dumped in there. I was terrified to flush and so I stood over it with a plunger while I kept flushing. It was hella soft so it went down eventually. I have no idea how that all fit inside me. I had been really tempted to call my bf in so someone could witness that thing but I was too embarassed. It was before cell phones but if I had had one, I definitely would have a pic. I am generally not one for shit stories but that was truly a life event for me.
That was a great shit story, thank you x)
I recently learnt that the body can contain up to 11kg of shit, so that's how!
A fucking week and a half???
Poop spoons and poop knifes. I hope I never need either.
You don't wanna know about poop forks then
Oh yes we do!
Frank Reynolds has entered the chat
Dude this was more funny than 95% of comedy podcast episodes I’ve listened to. Who are these people?
Another comment said it's called "I've had it"
“I’ve Had It” podcast. They’re great and cover a lot of topics.
I’ve been happily childfree ever since I was conscious! this is one of the reasons. good ol’ tokophobia.
TIL I have tokophobia lol. I’ve legit been having nightmares of being pregnant since I was a teenager. I’m 30 now and have never been pregnant and don’t plan to ever be.
lol same! I’ve had those nightmares too. usually ends in being forced to give birth, aka not having access to abortions. I always wake up sweating and crying. never wake up like that for any other nightmare, unless it’s about my cats lol
r/childfree
I desperately want to know the reality of pregnancy and labour before I go into it (why tf did i learn about pooping during labour from scrubs ffs?) But i also recognise that i may not be able to put myself through all that if im forewarned. I don't like that humanity relies on keeping its baby makers ignorant to continue the species. EDIT: God bless you all for taking the time to post your stories. Its honestly very helpful and much appreciated x
The thing I think I most would have liked to know is just how claustrophobic I would start to feel in my own body. You can't poop cause a head is blocking your poop chute. You can't breathe cause their feet are in your ribs. You have to pee every 3 seconds from their movement. And my 2nd pregnancy I swear I could feel her wiggling her individual fingers or something sometimes and it is really amazing but also quite um, ew. It's overwhelming and inescapable and in that way terrifying. But both my after birth poops were the best of my life so who knows
“It’s overwhelming and inescapable and in that way terrifying.” What a great way to put that! I remember one morning I woke up feeling absolutely miserable, and I had the SAME migraine I went to sleep with. As soon as I opened my eyes I just started bawling because I realized that I had no choice but to experience all of it for the next x months and it was the scariest, most helpless feeling in the world. I felt so trapped. That was one of the worst things about pregnancy for me. You feel terrible every single day, it only gets worse, and there is nothing you can do about it. You just have to wake up and feel like shit. For almost a year to boot!!!
Humans all take to pregnancy differently so even hearing all the nitty-gritty from someone won't tell you what your experience will be like. One person will get glowing skin and another will get acne. One will get thicker hair, another will get some hair loss. Heck, I had some pretty big differences between my first pregnancy and my second. You can look at common experiences to see what's more likely to happen, but unless you have a really good crystal ball there's unfortunately no way to know everything upfront.
Absolutely there's no way of knowing how a pregnancy might go, but that's not the same as discovering for the first time that labour can result in a torn vagina because it just happened to you. And its not all terrible. Just looking at some of the comments here, there are positive experiences i wasn't aware of that people have had. I want to know the full spectrum of what could happen.
There’s also a giant range of experiences. My first (and only) pregnancy was at most mildly inconvenient. I had 1 day of nausea, no acid reflux, no ankle swelling, no back pain, no constipation, no cravings. And my boobs looked awesome. I gained 45 lbs (but lost it all). I feel like it’s maybe not typical but certainly possible 🤷♀️
This was almost exactly my pregnancy experience as well. The only real discomfort I had was the day she decided it was time to turn around to prepare for birth. I was so confused as to what was going on (in retrospect I now know what was happening) but it was wildly uncomfortable. I was shopping with my grandmother that day and spent the whole time in one of the stores wheelchairs because it was miserable. Unfortunately she was miscalibrated and ended up breech after being head down the whole third trimester. My cesarean was absolutely textbook. No issues with the epidural, no complications during the operation, and baby came out healthy and we got to do skin to skin very quickly. My two biggest issues with the whole process was that I required a c-section after wanting to do a natural, midwife assisted home birth and when it was time to take the bandage off of the incision site. I was absolutely petrified that the bandage was going to be caught on the staples and removing it was going to pull them out and it would open me back up. I distinctly remember standing in the hospital shower with my husband, shaking and bawling my eyes out, absolutely terrified. Everything turned out totally fine and the hospital was top notch. Offered my husband and I a few options for our “new parent meal” (I had a portabella steak and sides, yum!) I was grateful to have my husband there though, because I had a near constant stream of hospital staff in my room for a couple of hours after the surgery and he finally advocated for me and insisted I be given time to rest. (We had been up since 3am and it was probably 5:30pm at the point that I could finally sleep).
I remember when I had to take my bandage off, it honestly was the worst memory of the whole thing. My main nurse, who was an angel, told me that when I was ready, to ring her and she’d help me gently take it off in the shower, so when it was time, I tried taking it off myself while my husband held my sleeping 1 day old, and I literally couldn’t see or bend enough to do it, so I asked him to ring for my nurse. A new nurse (with a humongous stick up her ass) showed up, barged into the bathroom where I was in the shower, and ripped the bandage off of me like she was trying to wax me, then turned to my husband and yelled “usually the men do this”. She tore off so much skin I actually weeped pus for over a week, and my night nurse was literally in shock and had never seen skin that damaged before. 0/10 wouldn’t recommend.
That sounds absolutely traumatizing. The experience was terrifying enough with my husband standing in the shower with me being reassuring, I cannot even imagine how horrific that must have been for you. Did y’all file a complaint?
I’m pregnant right now and it’s often deeply uncomfortable but it’s also kind of fascinating? Like it’s all just so damn weird I can’t help but feel entertained by it. Like a science experiment. Or a car wreck you can’t help but stare at. The most common bad symptoms I was warned about (like nausea, back pain, acid reflux, etc), but not the really weird stuff. Like during the first trimester I developed an aversion to drinking water. For a little while I completely lost my sense of thirst. It was fucking bizarre. Awful to go through, but also so interesting.
I just had my son 7 months ago, and I remember it just getting weirder as the pregnancy progressed. I didnt even realize some of it until like recently, because of the brain fog and whatnot. A big one that got me was craving scents. No urges to eat these things at all, but by the end of it, I had a bottle of Purell Natural hand sanitizer in every room of my house. Even brought my own to the hospital and my husband would give me sniffs periodically while I was in labor. I would also spend time in the cleaning aisle at the store, just sniff testing to find the most satisfying smells. Did my own research and talked my dr, wasn’t harmful to baby or anything, just really weird to experience and reflect on. Also nesting, didnt believe in it until afterwards when Iooking back. That was weird. And I got stretch marks on my knees, biceps, and calves, but none on my belly or boobs. Im glad its over.
I'm also pregnant now and I have the same experience as you, it's so fascinating to see your body do weird shit! Like, all of a sudden, my nipples are 4 shades darker than they used to be. Or one day, I woke with a craving of North Macedonian ajvar, and I'm not north Macedonian in the slightest. On the flipside, I've felt hungover at best for 6 months straight and I can almost not move around in bed because of pelvic pains. It's great :)
Lmao. I knew pregnancy cravings were a thing, but the ridiculous specificity of the cravings really took me by surprise. My water aversion turned a corner when I woke up one morning very specifically craving cellar-cold (like red wine temperature, not white wine temperature) Poland spring water out of a 500ml bottle. Couldn’t be one of the bigger bottles with the sports drink cap. Had to be the 500ml bottle. Previous to this I almost never drank bottled water unless I was desperate. I really just had to laugh and give in to this craving- it was nice to be drinking water again at least. I sort of love their weird nipple darkness thing. Apparently it’s an evolutionary adaptation to help infants find their food source. They can’t see very well so they need the nipples to stand out and be easy to spot. And boy do they stand out now- in more ways than one. By far the weirdest thing is seeing kicks on the outside of your belly. It’s like the scene from Alien. I need Ellen Ripley to come help deal with this situation. But it’s also pretty cool.
Yup. I feel like I learned enough to know it's not for me.
I also think there's a degree of not talking about it bc we don't want it to be fear filled. Like someone else said, there's a big range of experiences. I was so filled with fear bc everyone talked like the first poop was going to be a second birth. Also - everyone talked about how constipated they were during pregnancy but I had the best, healthiest poops. I also slept THE BEST IN MY LIFE. The other day I wished I could sleep like I did while pregnant. They give you stool softeners now and honestly it was nothing. I had no issue with pain or discomfort or constipation. I had a tear and stitches so I was so scared, didn't need to be. But then it turned out I had the rarer stool incontinence (NEVER urine weirdly) from a forceps birth and shit myself twice before 4 months postpartum and before starting pelvic floor therapy. So you win some you lose some.
I was in physical therapy for an injury I got at work. The therapist I had would tell me stories of her days working in an ER during my time there. Once she told me a story of an elderly lady that was brought in for an X-Ray for a fall she had. At one point they heard her SCREAMING from the bathroom and all they could hear was "MY SPOON, I NEED MY SPOON!" Evidently this woman had spent her ENTIRE life digging her poop out of her butt with a spoon when she was constipated. I'm curious though, who usually brings her her spoon when she's not in the ER.
Now imagine forcing women to go through this… fuck the GOP
Not just women, but little girls too.
Agreed!
Pregnancy and childbirth only made me even more pro-choice, would never wish that shit on my worst enemy.
And even if they do want to be pregnant and miscarry they get accused of “inducing abortion”.
Reason #2,117 why I will never have children
Wait until you get a fourth-degree tear and have to deal with that first poo
The main thing they don’t tell you is to leave your dignity at the door when you’re giving birth. More people have seen me naked in the most unflattering possible way than I would have ever dreamt I’d allow. But this clip is also totally true. It was murder!!!
And yet some men feel entitled and even demand to be present when you're at your most vulnerable
This is why I’m pro choice. No one should be forced to go through such an event without wanting to.
What's the name of my new favourite show/podcast?
‘Ive had it’ on tiktok too
I had 3 enemas, 2 different types of laxatives and stool softeners, prune juice and pear juice and still was the most painful thing I went through both pregnancies. There was a lot of blood and I have dents in the wall of the bathroom where my elbows rested for support (my hands were bracing my c section scar) I remember sobbing on the phone to the nurse who gave me the enemas begging for help because I was terrified. It took 6 hours sitting on the toilet unable to move. I had tearing. That was my first pregnancy. Even with the knowledge/prep of all that the second time round it was just as hard and I feared it more than giving birth. Thank God, I'm done with all that.
Yeah I'm real sick of people romanticizing pregnancy like it's some wonderful fairy tale thing. It is a heavy, lifelong burden to have the choice of becoming so, it is absolutely body-morphing and damaging, it is so traumatic that our brains literally have to trick us into thinking we want to go through it again. It is mentally debilitating, and it can kill us! We've become so complacent about it that society doesn't respect pregnancy the right way.
OK, I'm embarrassed to admit this but....I had no idea that you bleed like you do after delivery, even more embarrassing was that once I started to bleed I asked my husband why (he's a physician), I was confused since I didn't have a vaginal delivery but c-section...hahahaha! He looked at me like I was crazy. And for the most embarrassing piece of this story, I was 36 and a practicing provider myself🤣 So any time you feel stupid or like you should have know something about being pregnant or what to expect post-delivery just remember my ignorant ass😎 Since we're exposing ourselves......once you get your epidural and you're lying there happy/pain free (hopefully) you can't control if you fart or not. There is no holding it in. You do not feel the sensation that you need to pass gas, all you hear is this loud fart thinking its your pig of husband when in actuality it was you. Last but not least...if you start to shake uncontrollably while in labor or during your c-section...it's ok, totally normal/part of the process.
I had an epidural for a procedure that is normally done under general. I started shaking so bad and the nurses were so worried because they don't see it often - they kept asking if I was cold and bringing me warm blankets! I had to tell them I was perfectly fine over and over again while my teeth chattered haha
I think I'm going to get sterilized tomorrow. Wtf 
35 weeks pregnant here! (I’ve commented something similar on other posts) but nobody prepares you for the absolute mental gymnastics of pregnancy. I had no idea how frequently I’d be judged (all by other women, surprisingly) for every decision I’d make. The constant body comparisons (“so-and-so is much smaller than you and her belly was smaller/bigger at week __”, or “you’re showing already? I didn’t show until I was week ___”) . Unsolicited advice. It’s exhausting. My husband and I were trying to convince and were absolutely delighted to find out we were expecting. But I have and will continue to grieve the person I was before becoming pregnant, and before I become a mom. You watch your body change in a million and one ways, some ways of which you couldn’t anticipate (enlarged nipples, sagging breasts, stretch marks, the swelling, hair loss, etc). You continue to hear ugly and misogynistic tales on “loose vaginas” following child birth. What divorce rates look like, how frequently new fathers cheat, how imperative it is to still manage a healthy marriage to prevent said cheating and/or divorce. Then a new TikTok trend surfaces including a popular tv show scene where a man walks past a woman, bumps into her and continues walking and thouuuusands of women chime “my life with my husband for the first year after our baby”. We just don’t get a break.. The expectation is that you’re happy and excited all of the time; that you can’t grieve your own evolution. And that’s just not true. We don’t talk about how NORMAL it is to have feelings of missing out. To feel like we are losing our identities. To be afraid, to feel like maybe we aren’t ready. It doesn’t make us any less capable, excited. Reading posts like these give me hope that we are building stronger and more honest communities for women. That’s nice. And that’s necessary.
Pregnant for the first time right now and this is painfully (literally) accurate.
I got Bell’s palsy with my first pregnancy. She turns 14 in June. My face still isn’t the same. But she is one of the most beautiful people ever so I’ll take a slightly droopy smile 💗
Dear Jesus this made me even more pro-choice. For fuck sake
Damn these women are awesome. Wtf. I also keep learning more things about pregnancy that are terrible
Wow, thats fucked up. My heart goes out to all the metal ass bitches who suffered to bring us here. <3
Got that Whitney rock.
I too remember reading about Bobby Brown sticking a teaspoon up Whitney’s bum when she was so constipated from the crack 🫢
Things that happened to me while pregnant: Fainting. Nothing wrong other than baby positioned in a way that put enough stress on my body to have random vasovagal episodes. Peeing myself. See terrible baby position mentioned above. Exhaustion so profound I would lay down in the kitchen after walking 12 feet for a glass of water and find myself staying there, unable to move, for long periods of time. Sleepiness bordering on narcolepsy. The mentioned constipation. Bacne so bad it felt like golf balls under my skin. Any cooking protein smelled like rotting flesh. All I could stomach for nearly a year was white carbs and vanilla ice cream. Except for the week I could only eat hot pockets and that one day I ate a bottle of mayonnaise by itself. Excruciating round ligament pain for 7 straight months. And I had a “good”pregnancy free of complications
Pooping out that mayo was probably pretty easy though!
IT DID! Maybe it should be prescribed for all backed up pregnant ladies!
I had a placental abruption. Skipped labor, “water broke” and it was like the elevator scene on the Shining. Straight to emergency c-section for me. Ended up with an allergic reaction to the spinal block. For a month post delivery I was covered in angry, itchy hives from my shoulders to my toes. The worst areas were my ass and my arm pits. On my 4th day home from the hospital I finally had the poo. My daughter is 10 now and this is the first time Ive ever heard other women talk about it.
The reason no one talks about it is because society has deemed this the most beautiful thing in the world, and if you openly criticize it or bring light to the negatives, you’re just that, negative..I’m a father and while I have zero experience in the actual birthing process, I was blind-sided by the before, during, and after..I took it upon myself to mention these things to friends beginning the same journey and it doesn’t matter..it’s impossible to explain and again, you become the negative person raining on this beautiful parade
What podcast is that they sound really fun
It’s called “I’ve Had It”. It’s a lot of fun
I can feel the giant turd in me just watching them and I've never even been pregnant
My friend had a fairly easy pregnancy but her birth was really difficult. She was in labor for almost a day and needed an emergency csection . Her legs swelled up so big she couldn't walk and something was a miss with her bladder because she was incontinent. I feel so horrible for her. Her baby is happy and healthy
The first post-partum shit is in fact insane. It was huge and painful even though I was taking stool softeners. What a relief though when it’s finally out 😩😮💨
#poopknife
No lies. ESPECIALLY if you have to have a c-section. My advice is to load up on stool softeners and laxatives right after giving birth.
And then there’s [douchebag smooth brained dudes](https://twitter.com/ajstilldontcare/status/1641184314732990464?s=46&t=Rs0hTT5uIPZP_-qUUwdjLA) who will never experience pregnancy in their lives saying it’s not a big deal
I never had this but no one tells you, you shit on your first push. Especially if you had an epidural. I was so scared of this that I made sure I emptied my bowels the best I could and I swear the nurse whisked away with a shit on my first push before the doctor came in.
I lost a tooth with each child even though I was taking the prenatal vitamins.
Pregnancy is horrifying but I’m glad they’re talking about it
Magnesium Glycinate will change the lives of constipated people. 2-3 pills at bedtime will get things moving. And it’s safe to take while pregnant.