I don’t know about you, but the BLUNTmoms laugh hysterically whenever they watch Hollywood movie birth. Oh, if ONLY labour was always precipitated by a comedic gush of bodily fluids. If ONLY it consisted of about 5 minutes of pretty grunting and a dapple of sweat before the doctor plops a slightly damp (but otherwise clean!) and healthy 3 month old in the mother’s arms.
We call shenanigans!
No two birth experiences are quite alike, it’s true. But 30 BLUNTmoms who have childbirth in common can compile quite the list of all the fun things that might just happen to you while you’re on your back trying to deliver a miracle… just like we did when we talked about the grossest things that might happen to you during pregnancy.
1) “Inducing”
No doubt at some point you’ll hear a list of things you’re not supposed to do because they could make you go into labour. This list will include but not be limited to: sex, masturbation, playing with your nipples, and eating spicy food (WTF?). If you’re like every desperate-to-deliver woman who’s gotten to 40 weeks, you will try them all anyway (virtually all of us confessed we tried).
Why don’t they put those things in the movies? It would be comedic gold.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work when you want it to. As best as we can deduce from the BLUNTmoms’ not-very-scientific survey, there’s a 1/30 chance of success inducing with sex, but one of our seasoned moms warns that you might end up having to wear one of your child’s diapers to the hospital as a maxi-pad. Yes, we are talking about bleeding of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre variety. She and the baby were both fine; she was assured that this was “because you had sex.”
Just in case you needed more horror movie parallels.
2) The Water Breaking
If you believe Hollywood movie births, you’ll be waddling prissily through a highly-populated area during your thirty-ninth week of gestation and BAM! Suddenly you’re standing in a puddle. Then the contractions hit. Exactly three BLUNTmoms experienced the “movie birth” scenario, and judging from the stories, we figure that it involves overly rigorous house cleaning that we could do without. Just sayin’.
One says, “I woke up to get coffee and it fully gooshed out and down my pants. Baby an hour later in the house.”
The other says, “I thought I’d pissed myself, was on bed rest with preeclampsia watching reruns of Magnum PI. Got up to pee and it just gushed. I was still having my personal tsunami into my Dansko clogs as they wheeled me in to the hospital. I got new clogs.”
And BLUNTmom Brooke Takhar wrote a full fledged post about how she soiled every square inch of civilization between her couch and the hospital.
The rest of us? Naw, man. Contractions first. Sometimes looooong hours of contractions first. Sometimes cursing at the residents first as they are breaking it for us because it hasn’t broken on its own. AND DID YOU KNOW that it’s possible for the water to break at the top instead of the bottom, so that you’re forced to go around leaking like an incontinent old fart every time you have a contraction?
That’s fun.
Clear fluid? Pfft. If you’re unlucky, the fluid will be yellow or green, which means there’s meconium (tar-like baby crap, to the layman) in the amniotic fluid. That means there may be upwards of 20 people from the neonatal response unit in the room as you engage in your “most sacred moment” of squeezing a miracle out of your crotch.
Instead of the movie birth experience, the OB cradling the baby and shouting “it’s a girl!” while everyone bursts into happy joy tears, they will unceremoniously yank that miracle from between your knees–considerately also unceremoniously severing the umbilical cord so you’re not yanked along by the placenta–and immediately suction baby poopy water out of her lungs.
3) The Epidural
Hollywood movie birth kind of glosses over the whole pain relief thing. Here’s how you get an epidural in real life if you’re delivering vaginally: If you think there’s ANY chance you might want an epidural, and they offer to get the anesthesiologist when you’re first admitted, say YES now.
The anesthesiologist will open the back of your gown humiliating sheet with a neck-string and instruct you to hug your knees and NOT MOVE if you have a contraction while they are stabbing a giant needle into your spine. You will, of course, have a contraction, because of the universal law of perversity. Do. Not. Fricking. Move.
Incidentally, don’t ask how they know they are getting the needle in the right place either. You cannot unhear that. Ever.
If you’re going to wait on an epidural, be prepared for this scenario (which also falls under the universal law of perversity): anesthesiologist might be off tending a scheduled C-section at the very moment your will gets crushed. By the time they finally stroll around, you’ll be told it’s too late. They will probably try to be comforting and tell you that you’re through 95% of the worst part anyway, so just suck it up a little bit.
To add insult to injury, they might mention that you should ask for one earlier next time. Try to refrain from punching them in the baby-maker, even if you think you could argue “public service” in the courtroom as you’re standing trial for assault.
4) Vomiting
We think Hollywood should change it up and show a lady puking into the lap of her date during a pregnancy-rom-com ala George Bush and the Japanese Prime Minister. Because, sorry ladies, odds are good that you’re going to vomit at some point during labour. Like, 99%.
It might be right away. It might be when you transition into active labour. If you’re lucky, it’ll be a once and done thing, and someone will be around to catch it for you, although one of our BLUNTmoms vomited on her husband in the shower.
We’re relatively certain he didn’t feel so lucky about catching that one.
If you’re unlucky, someone won’t react fast enough with the bowl and you might find yourself catching your own vomit a couple of times.
If you’re really unlucky, you might be like one poor BLUNTmom who vomited. Every. Single. Contraction.
5) Pooping
If you think vomiting is awful, well then aren’t you just adorable?
One of the potential signs of imminent labour is that your body might try to evacuate your bowels in the speediest means possible (epic diarrhea, to the layman). Of course, sometimes your body doesn’t get the memo in a timely fashion. This may be in some part due to the prenatal vitamins that have been stopping you up like a cork.
If your body gets the memo a little late? Well, I’m sure you can just imagine the possible comedy fodder you might get out of this… about 20 years later, when you can finally laugh about it.
Delivering vaginally also means better-than-average odds of crapping yourself in the process, especially if your body got the memo too early, sometimes to the cheerful tones of a nurse singing “We’ve got feeeecal!” I assume they pretend they’re cheerful about it because trying to keep your spirits up about both of the most humiliating things a woman in her prime can go through keeps them from flinging the feces at the walls on the bad days.
Try to at least remember to thank them, but we recommend bottles of alcohol for their off-nights.
Nurses will actually encourage you to poop the birthing bed because it means you’re “pushing with the right muscles.” They might even illustrate this point by constantly poking you in the rectum and telling you to “push there.” Be cautious in enthusiastically pushing “there” because that’s also how also how you develop hemorrhoids the size of an entire head of cauliflower. Try to aim a little north of “there.” Pretend your baby is a 9-pound tampon whose string got “lost.”
You can’t always take credit for being a good little pusher, because sometimes it could just be that your baby’s head is pressing on your intestine as he descends. No movie birth will tell you that your little miracle might squeeze your bowels like a tube of toothpaste on his way out.
The BLUNTmoms will. You’re welcome.
6) The “Stalwart” Mate
Most partners in movie births survive the baby birth stoically. And if they don’t, it’s kind of comedic, but still fine. He’ll run around in a panic and everyone has a good laugh, and he might learn a life lesson or two about being a dad even though he panicked for 80 minutes and 9 months about it. Cheers! Not once do they ever spout some of the things that come out of real partners’ mouths in labour. We assume that’s to keep women from punching men out in theatres.
On that note, as annoying as it is that they’re allowed to eat, kick any extra participants out once in a while and let them go get food and have a break. Trust me. They’re going to need the fortification. If you’re whiling away the time in labour, and you feel like you could use a good laugh, just ask the nearest L&D nurse if men ever pass out.
Seriously. Just ask.
My husband and doula were chased out of my room by a nurse, and I had not one thing to argue against it once she told us the story of a man videotaping his child’s delivery from over the OB’s shoulder. As his wife was busily engaged in squeezing the proverbial watermelon through the beloved “love canal,” the amateur videographer fainted, fell backwards into the linen closet, hit his head hard enough on a shelf to knock himself out cold, and wet himself on the way down to the floor.
In the delivery room, passed-out dudes are second priority. Even when they’re covered in their own urine. She assured my husband that if he was “one of those,” the nurses and OB would step right over him.
How’s that for a memory saved for posterity?
7) The Baby!
Sorry Hollywood, this is where you’ve got movie birth the most wrong, cause instead of the slightly-damp infant, you’re likely going to have a pissed-off, mottled purple-blue-red-green conehead with an old-man face who also looks like he lost a food fight at the cottage cheese factory plopped on your belly.
And if “It’s a boy!” you can be 73% sure that the first private words that come out of your partner’s mouth will be: “DID YOU SEE THE SIZE OF HIS TESTICLES? IS THAT NORMAL?”
And in spite of all of this stuff, you’ll love both partner and baby both the same. Eventually. It’s hormones, man. It’s nature’s way of downplaying the weirdness.
Enjoy.
I’m from an era where they showed us a video of a woman giving birth in 8th grade sex ed. Not only was it incredibly educational, it had the bonus side effect of ensuring that us gals studiously educated ourselves on birth control or kept our legs firmly shut–to our collective knowledge, not one teenage pregnancy happened in our entire county during those days, and not even for many years after… almost all of my friends either made it to about 30 or wrote off the baby thing entirely.
So maybe it’s a good thing Hollywood doesn’t show this reality stuff too often in the movies… as funny as it is, we might decide to close up uterus on the human race. Permanently.
How about you, readers? Did we forget anything hilarious and gross that happens?