Mamas with short labours, help me feel better! - Page 2

[NYCVeg]

Originally Posted by blissful_maia

Hey mamas,

I am getting very, very tired of people... relatives, strangers even saying "Oh you're so lucky" and "I wish I had it so easy" when I tell them that I had an under two hour labour with my second dd.

Honestly, it was 100 times harder (and more rewarding and beautiful) than my 26-hour labour, and in the moment I would have traded a longer, more paced labour.

What do you guys think? How should I reply? And how should I validate to myself the fact that I did really, really hard work even though it was over quickly!?

I so hear you on this. My first (and only) labor was crazy: water broke, got a few contractions going about 6 hours later...contractions fizzled out for many hours...took a nap and woke up in ACTIVE labor (and I mean seriously active) and it was 3.5 hours from then until when dd was born. It would have been much shorter had we not had the ride to the birth center; I felt my first pushing contraction in the car, but then regressed a bit when we got there and went back into transition. My birth assistant made it there a minute or two after dd was born.

A labor that fast was really scary (especially for a first birth). It was insanely intense. In my Bradley class, they talked about how great pushing is b/c you have around five minutes between contractions and you can rest, blah blah blah. My pushing contractions were 30 seconds to a minute apart.I'm really nervous about having another baby, too, since second labors are supposed to be a lot shorter than first ones. Eek.

I also get the "you were so lucky" comments. I just tell people that 1) faster labors are often much more intense and 2) I would definitely have preferred a longer, less intense labor. Honestly, though, what people don't understand about birth would fill volumes. Trying to "educate" people is completely frustrating.

[BlueBella]

I agree - My mom's labour was 18 hours so I was expecting a long haul, so my first baby's 3hour labour was a real ride. I felt completely shell-shocked afterwards, and the fact that I now had a baby was completely irrelevant to me! My second labour I at least knew what to expect, we decided to have a homebirth (mainly b/c of the time factor), and even though labour was only 1 1/2 hours and very intense, I felt very in control and afterwards totally euphoric! If anything, I wish that 2nd labour had been longer b/c it was one of the most awesome experiences of my life and it was over so quickly! (I would NOT have said that if you'd asked me during the labour though!) I'm hoping #3 will be around 3 or 4 hours (and not 30 mins in the grocery store parking lot, which is my too-fast-birth-nightmare!!!). And yes, people do dismiss what I went through - they were very intense and painful, with no time to practise any of those labour supporting massage, position techniques that we had learned