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dont laugh at me- wondering about pushing - Page 2  

post #21 of 37
8/9/04 at 10:08am
Thread Starter 
So- its generally like taking a huge poop. So you know when youre constipated you push and push and nothing ishappening? When youre pushing do you at least feel like something is happening??? I guess I am sort of dreading that really bad constipation-"I could push till I die without anything even moving" feeling...
I know TMI but I want to know...
post #22 of 37
8/9/04 at 11:53am
Yes, if you truly wait for your body to take over, you feel like something is happening. Once I started pushing, the baby was out in 5 pushes. For others it takes longer, but the difference is that your progress gets you closer to meeting your baby. Whereas with constipation, there is no such incentive.
post #23 of 37
8/9/04 at 1:18pm
My first birth was more managed than my others and I pushed because I was at 10 cm and told I could. I was on my back with my knees pulled back to my ears (just like on TV). I still only had to push for 20 minutes.

My second baby I pushed for about 30 minutes on my side (just let instinct tell me when to push with the contraction) to move him down. The final pushing stage (crowning) was about 6 minutes.

The third baby was even more instinctual. My water broke and it felt right to be on my back, but not with my feet up (I have never felt such relief in my life as when I started to push) She came out about four minutes later. The midwife told me to reach down if I wanted to catch her. I looked and her head was out... I missed it somehow.

Oh, the feeling of pressure on my rectum with this last one was for over an hour. And that is what the pressure felt like... in my rectum. The "urge to push" was more like a need for a bowel movement than anything else.
post #24 of 37
8/9/04 at 2:39pm
Pushing felt great for me! You're definitely pushing for a purpose. It's not like being constipated at all. My midwife never checked my dilation, she simply watched me and could tell when I was fully dilated and ready to push. There wasn't any stopping it or starting it unless my body was ready.

In a way, pushing is like a big poop, a really, really BIG poop.

It didn't hurt at all, I did have the 'ring of fire' sensation (not as bad as it sounds), but just breathed through it and out came baby! (And no tears for mama!)

You'll have a wonderful birth!
post #25 of 37
8/9/04 at 3:09pm
Pushing was my favorite part. I guess it was easier for me to "let go" at that point, simply because it was so completely involuntary and obviously out of my control. It was amazing for me to feel my babies decend down the birth cannel with each wave. With ds#2 my midwife tried to get me to slow down and control the desent (because he was coming so fast), but that was like trying to stop a speeding train by hand :LOL, so I didn't even try (and kind of snapped at her, "I CAN'T STOP PUSHING"). The "pushing" faze took less than 10 minutes that time (about 30 minutes the first time), so it is also the shortest part of labor for me (ds#1 41 hours, ds#2 24 hours total).
post #26 of 37
8/9/04 at 8:36pm
Quote:
When youre pushing do you at least feel like something is happening???
i didn't; i just felt extreme pressure, then suddenly i felt her crowning. but, i *did* know that stuff was happening, just because the pressure was so intense...

w/ my first, i just felt pain ~ lots and lots of pain.
post #27 of 37
8/10/04 at 1:40am
i'm sure u'll get a ton of answers here, but...

i thought i totally sucked at pushing, even tho i pushed for just 1 1/2 hrs and every one midwife said "great job! she'll be here in no time"...and, BTW, those 90 minutes actually seemed to go by much faster than that, for me, anyway. it's like having to take the biggest poop of your life, BUT i didn't feel like i was constipated...just that it was something i had to do. it's just hard work and i personally didn't find the pushing painful...just like contracting a muscle for a long time. i just more felt like i couldn't keep catching my breath and pushing AGAIN and AGAIN during each contraction.

advice: ask for a mirror...it helps you see your progress so if you feel like nothingis happening you can look down and see that it is!
post #28 of 37
8/10/04 at 2:04am
blueviolet;
I love reading your posts, I always learn so much!
Where do you get all of this info?
I really wish I had known about the pushing deal before dd was born, would have saved me a lot of trouble and pain.

Wow, you just word everything so perfectly, Im just reading it going, "well, duh! why isnt that common knowledge, it just makes so much sense..."
post #29 of 37
8/10/04 at 6:42pm
OK, my first I had an epidural so I couldn't feel what was going on, I had no urge to push and when they told me to I couldn't even feel myself doing it. It was frustrating. I pushed for three hours and ended up having him sucked out with three nurses standing over me pushing. Not good.

Number two, I was at home in a tub and oh my god! When it was time to push it didn't matter what I did. My body was totally disconnected from my brain. It just pushed. It was awsome! The midwives and DH were laughing so hard at me. The midwife had just felt me and told me I was 9 cm dialated so when my body just started pushing I cried "It keeps pushing [my body] I can't make it stop!!] I was all freaked out thinking I wasn't fully dialated and that pushing would hurt my cervix LOL! They were like it's fine! If you need to push, push! After the first ten minutes of that the urge slowed down a bit and I could actually control my pushing. It didn't hurt much at all compared to the contractions of labor. It was great! I am so glad I stayed home form the hospital and got to experience it in such a real way.
post #30 of 37
8/10/04 at 6:49pm
Quote:
#2 (and this is where I differ from many other 'natural birth' folks) was completely unmedicated, and nobody told me when to push - my body decided. I had an uncontrollable urge to push. It still took me 40 minutes from that point to get my normally positioned, not terribly large (8#11) son out. I hate pushing with a vengeance. The worst part were leg cramps I'd get w/every contraction.
How is that different than most natural births? That sounds just like mine How could it be any different?

I also want to say how much I detest hospital birthing. The counting, them telling you when to push, yelling, UGH! It makes sense for the woman with an epidural since the whole natural process is so thwarted, you need someone to tell you what to do since your body sure as heck isn't going to tell you anything :LOL But when I hear people yelling at totally normal, unmedicated women "Push" "1-2-3-4" "Pushpushpushpush" I want to slap them. Unless I ask for help pushing don't yell at me thank you very much!!!!
post #31 of 37
8/12/04 at 7:45pm
Pushing was AWESOME with my last birth (home). I "did" none of it at all. It started taking over the contractions (right when I thought my head might pop off from the pain I might add) and soon it was the ONLY kind of contraction going on. I was squatting and it was purely uncontrollable. It made me go "unh unh unh..." and provided a HUGE relief of pain from the contractions I'd been having (labor was fastish-8 hours total).

My suggestion is do NOT get checked to see how far along you are. Let your body start working when it needs to, don't resist it (not even sure if I could have!) and don't try to help it by "pushing" (that can hinder things).

Push in a squatting position if you can! Really helps.
post #32 of 37
8/13/04 at 3:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by NatureMamaOR

Push in a squatting position if you can! Really helps.
I second that suggestion.
post #33 of 37
8/13/04 at 10:12pm

squat ~



i birthed Lyssi in a sort of squatting position, and it was immeasurably easier than birthing lying down!
post #34 of 37
8/13/04 at 10:58pm
The squat I was in was a "sort-of" squat too. It's hard to describe, but I'll try, since it was SOOOOOO helpful.

I was in a birthing pool (AquaDoula btw ) with my arms over the side at about the mid-upper-arm and was holding my hubby's hands. My left knee was on the floor of the pool and my right was in a squat (so I was sort-of lopsided). It would probably have been too hard/painful to SQUAT fully the whole time, but this was very tolerable and I never moved position during pushing (thobeit that was only 20 minutes :LOL)
post #35 of 37
8/13/04 at 11:13pm
i was kind of lopsided too, right when she came out ~ i had been sitting with my legs all the way apart on the toilet, and supporting my weight more on my legs than on the seat, and leaning into my SO with all of my weight (head tucked into the crook of one of his arms, with his other arm on my back rubbing my back + helping support me), then when she began crowning i had to lift up one side of myself so that exxo could actually catch her, so i pushed up with my right leg and kind of leaned back a little to give him more room to catch her.
post #36 of 37
8/14/04 at 1:35am
I laid down b/c I was tired after being up for so long, so I don't know about the squatting.

I pushed before I felt anything. I don't know if it did anything. But when my body started pushing, it felt like vomiting. Not in the sense of being nauseated, but when your stomach contracts repeatedly and is heaving, you can't stop it if you tried. That is what my belly was doing. It rocked.
post #37 of 37
8/14/04 at 4:01am
I don't know if you will like my response . . .

I HATE pushing! I can deal with labor no problem, but I find pushing to be horrible. I pushed for 3 hours with ds1, and 1.5 hours with ds2. Each time I wanted to give up, and thought that there was no way I aws going to be able to do it.

With ds2, I remember telling my midwives that it wasn't going to work, that I was going to split open. They reassured me that I wasn't, but I was positive I was going to be the first woman in history to split in half when the head crowned!

Is it like a big bowel movement? Yes, "big" being an understatement. It feels to me like pushing a bowling ball out of my butt!

Like some others have mentioned, it is completely uncontrollable. I describle it like the dry heaves but coming out the other end. I had to bear down, I had no choice. And remember, you do have breaks in between. With ds2, I had long breaks in between, probably 3-4 minutes, which really helps to keep your energy level up.

And even though I had a natural birth with my first, being in the hospital, the pushing was way more managed than I would have liked, and I think contributed to it taking 3 hours.

My 2nd was a home waterbirth, and my midwives basically said nothing about when or how to push. I told them when I was pushing - I could feel it coming. The tail end of my contractions starting 'feeling pushy' and I knew it was time. Even though I still really hated the whole sensation, it was so much better to just go with my body more than I did in the hospital.
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