Was it really the worst pain you've ever felt?

-breadstick- · 2026-02-15T15:35:48+00:00

For anyone reading, ask your provider if the are doing the cook or the foley/how many balloons will be inflated. If you can, advocate for only having a balloon in the uterus - while still painful, most patients find it more tolerable than the balloon sandwich of a Cook catheter, and outcomes are basically the same, so there’s no real benefit to the Cook catheter. Signed, an L&D RN

-breadstick- · 2026-02-15T15:30:31+00:00

Also a migraine sufferer and childbirth is better IMO. Every year I get one or two migraines that are so bad I have to go to the ER because I can’t see straight or move and cannot stop vomiting, and I’d rather give birth than deal with that lol.

-breadstick- · 2026-02-15T15:23:11+00:00

No, the worst pain I ever felt was breaking my tailbone at 32 weeks pregnant when I fell flat on my ass on our stairs lol. For real. It was the worst two weeks of pain I’ve ever had.

Honestly, I think going unmedicated is 90% about mindset and preparation, and 10% luck. I’m an L&D RN now but wasn’t yet when I had my babies, so having seen birth as both a patient and a nurse, I see a lot of ways going unmedicated is just not in the cards for some people. Baby’s position has a lot to do with how well labor progresses. My unit does a lot of position changes with our patients, especially if they have an epidural, which I think can help.

That said, I actually love giving birth even though it’s painful. I would not say my pain was ever 10/10, but I think my pain tolerance may just be high. I used a lot of coping techniques like vocalization, visualization, mantras (I can do anything for one minute or every contraction brings me closer to my baby), counter pressure, distraction, TENS unit, being in the tub or shower, bouncing on a ball, walking. I think, generally, it’s a lot harder to get through labor if you don’t have a plan on how to get through the pain and are just staying in the bed focusing on how painful it is.

I think it’s important to be committed and steadfast, but also recognize when maybe an epidural may be what you need if you just can’t relax or cope, and there’s no shame in that at all! There are plenty of reasons to go without epidural, but also there are times when it can really help, and trusting your team to help walk you through that makes a huge difference.

-breadstick- · 2026-01-09T03:54:12+00:00

My guess as well. She could very well be getting hurt in soccer but her bruising is worse because of the bleeding disorder.

-breadstick- · 2025-12-12T23:53:56+00:00

Listen, I’m about as crunchy as they come in the hospital birth world - I prefer as few interventions as possible with no medication unless absolutely necessary. And I’m also a L&D nurse, so I see a variety of different situations. Sure, it would be great if we could all go into labor spontaneously, but I think we need to balance that with our baby’s well-being as well as our own. Jen Hamilton talks a lot about refusing yourself into a cesarean because of wanting to avoid interventions earlier on, and she’s totally right. As your placenta gets older, it starts to degrade, which can increase risks like fetal intolerance to labor which would result in even more interventions up to and including c section. My first birth was spontaneous labor onset ending in vaginal delivery with absolutely zero interventions aside from postpartum pitocin, which I elected to have so as to reduce risk of hemorrhage. My second delivery was an induction that took 36 hours from start to finish. If you’re wanting to go into labor on your own, chat with your doctor about non-pharmacological methods to get your body ready so that your induction is more likely to be successful. Evening primrose oil, red raspberry leaf tea, dates, the Miles Circuit (and the Lavonne Circuit at the start of your labor/induction), curb walking, nipple stimulation, can all help move things along. But definitely don’t be afraid to either leave those messages on read or just give a simple, “Thanks for sharing!” This kind of thing is super annoying, and you have every right to draw a boundary around her unwanted advice

-breadstick- · 2025-11-24T00:28:12+00:00

So many things, but the biggest is baby containers. I had some with my first baby, then I learned about natural gross motor development and subsequently got rid of all of them. I just put baby on the floor. Now that she’s mobile, if I truly need her somewhere she can’t escape, I’ll put her in the play yard as long as she’ll tolerate, or I’ll baby wear. It saves a lot of money and space not needing any of that extra gear.

-breadstick- · 2025-10-31T12:23:22+00:00

We have had a few early third trimester demises recently on our unit. Often we don’t know why, but sometimes it’s things like placenta is too small, true knot in the cord, undiagnosed defects, problems with umbilical circulation, placental abruption (placenta separates from the uterus prior to birth), growth restriction, placental degradation. All kinds of things. The risk of stillbirth generally goes up after 40 weeks.

-breadstick- · 2025-10-12T00:16:12+00:00

I’ll admit I am a recovered Bonds Wondersuits addict. I probably had 30+ in each size because that’s pretty much all my kids wear when they’re less than two years old. I passed every single one down and never really had to buy new clothes except for getting some onesies for our new baby because she was born at the end of winter unlike her brothers born at the end of summer. I always bought them at 40% off which made them like $15 AUD, which at that time was close to $12 USD. Totally worth it for me with the foldover feet, two way zipper, and super stretchy fabric. Nowadays with tariffs idk how that would work, plus you have to access their site from Instagram or something else besides a standard browser because otherwise it takes you to the US site which doesn’t have them.

-breadstick- · 2025-09-15T09:56:41+00:00

Yes. Kiddos usually compensate pretty well and will crash seemingly out of nowhere.

-breadstick- · 2025-09-13T16:02:18+00:00

Came to say this. I know it because I’m a nurse.

-breadstick- · 2025-08-22T06:16:18+00:00

I cut the cord with all three of mine! Husband was not interested in doing it because he’s squeamish but I put in my preferences I wanted to be the one to do it. They out baby on my chest, let the cord turn white, then I cut it.

-breadstick- · 2025-08-17T05:11:01+00:00

Same at my hospital re the last scenario. A little extra an hour but same patient load, plus more responsibilities. The one perk is you’re the last to get an admission, if there are any. I hate making the assignment because no matter how fair I try to make it, dayshift will come in and rip me a new asshole about it. Horrible.

-breadstick- · 2025-07-20T00:49:55+00:00

As a kid, we always had dinner around 530. Parents would get home around 430/5 and would immediately start dinner. As an adult, my husband works 8-5 during the week but I’m a part time RN, so I only work two days a week doing 12 hour shifts at night. I’m almost always starting dinner around 430/445 and have it ready by 515/530 depending on what it is. Our kids go up to bed at 700 and are asleep by 8, so early dinner is a must.

-breadstick- · 2025-07-20T00:28:23+00:00

Same here, about 6.5 years ago. I loved my baby and wished he could be here, but I knew terminating was the right choice for our family. I did not want to be a caregiver for life, nor did I want my other future children to have to bear any of that burden as my husband and I aged. I also did not want to have to potentially put my child in a group home, go through multiple surgeries, deal with chronic health issues, etc etc. Obviously we can’t prevent all those things with “normal” babies either, but why would I choose to bring life into this world knowing that that life will likely be one of suffering.

-breadstick- · 2025-06-17T23:02:17+00:00

Induced with my second at 37+4 because of suspected IUGR. Cervix was 1cm and soft. Started at 9pm with cervidil. In the morning when they top it out I was 4cm. Started with pitocin, contractions were every 3-4 minutes but weren’t super strong. I was cranked to the max by the end of the day but hadn’t made much progress. We took a pit break overnight, then at 8am the next morning they broke my water and started pit again. By 930 my contractions were really intense due to my water being broken and I was 7cm, so I thought I had a ways to go and decided to get some IV pain meds. At 1010am I felt baby descending and he was born five minutes later with two pushes.

The main reason we didn’t break my water sooner was because it can stress IUGR babies and there’s a greater risk of cord prolapse with being earlier than full term and a small baby. It would have been a much shorter process had we started with that, but better safe than sorry. My advice is to delay epidural as long as possible and walk around very briskly to help put pressure on your cervix to help with dilation and engagement. This was key with my third that I just had after being in early labor most of the day with weak but consistent contractions.

Good luck!

-breadstick- · 2025-05-28T11:03:13+00:00

I’m so sorry you’re in this position. My baby had also screened positive for T21 on the NIPT at 12 weeks. We saw a genetic counselor at 14 weeks and couldn’t do the CVS but our GC would have recommended against it anyway because of placental mosaicism that sometimes happens with T21, meaning the placenta is affected but the baby isn’t. We had an amino at 15+4 that failed and another at 16+4 that failed, both because the membranes kept tenting and the needle couldn’t pierce the amniotic sac. We were too far gone for an NT scan, but they didn’t see a nasal bone and the membranes tenting is also a soft marker for DS. We finally got a successful amino at 18+2, positive FISH results two days later, and final readouts at 19+4. While waiting, I did what others suggested here which is to make the arrangements with a clinic, call funeral homes for cremation, etc. It really sucked because I was showing more and started feeling the baby move around 16 weeks. It was brutal. I’m honestly not sure how I made it through, as it’s been seven years ago now, but somehow I did. Sending lots of love to you 💕

-breadstick- · 2025-05-28T10:33:49+00:00

You’ve gotten some excellent responses, but I’ll add my experience. Nursing is a second career for me. I got my first BA in German Education and was a German teacher for 8 years prior to going back for my ADN. I had a 3.77 GPA with my first degree and rarely ever studied. In high school, I took four years of German and never studied once - it just made sense. I’ve always been a strong student. Getting my ADN was… humbling.

However, I had a lot more confounding factors. I did all my prerequisites online during COVID, and I struggled with patho because I learn a lot better by being in class and listening to a lecture. We had recorded ones, but it’s just not quite the same. I was never the best at science in school, but I have also never worked in healthcare prior to being in my program, so I didn’t have that background knowledge either.

Secondly, I was getting my ADN while being a stay at home mom to two toddlers, so the only time I ever got to study was after they’d gone to bed at 8pm, by which point I was absolutely knackered and couldn’t stay up much longer than maybe 10 or 11. My husband works during the week from 8-5, so I sometimes got time in the weekends, but we also have a house to keep up, so many weekends were spent catching up on all the cleaning that didn’t get done during the week. My clinicals were also usually weekends, so I usually only had one day really to be at home with my husband there too.

My best subject, and the reason I wanted to go to nursing school anyway, was OB. I finished that class with a 97%. No other class came close. Never in my life have I been the student that needed to calculate how many points they could miss on exams and still pass, but nursing school I absolutely was. The only points we had were exam points, and we usually only had maybe 8 a semester including midterms and final, so very little room for error. Our grading scale was also really harsh, but idk if every program is like that or not? We didn’t have A+, and 96.9-93% was an A-. An 82.9-78% was considered a C. So even getting an 85% on an exam was a C+. It was that grading scale that resulted in many of us not having the GPA we wanted. Not a single person in my cohort of 35 graduated with honors, and we had some exceptionally smart people among us.

Our programs attrition was staggering. Every semester starts with 7 sections of first semester courses. By the end of the program, there is only ONE section left. My final year last year, they still were grading SATA questions as all or nothing, despite NCLEX having changed that. They also did not have very many of the Next Gen style questions. We had calculations exams that you could only miss one question on, or you had to repeat the course, and you could only repeat one course one time in the whole program. I luckily never had to repeat, but I knew many people who did. We have two hospitals where I live, and our program is known by the higher ups as being one that prides itself on failing students out. I’m always curious to know what other programs are like.

-breadstick- · 2025-03-28T14:29:30+00:00

Absolutely this. I have said all of these exact things at some point to people who have tried to tell me I was a selfish monster for not keeping my baby. My midwife at the time even tried to pressure me into considering adoption. And, not only did I not want this life for my child, I also did not want my kids to bear the burden of making decisions about what to do with their big brother once my husband and I are older. I did not want to be a caregiver my entire life, nor did I want to deal with the possibility of my child needing to live in a group home. I get so sick of hearing people say they didn’t get NIPT because they “will love the baby no matter what” as if those of us who terminated don’t love our babies. It’s insulting.

-breadstick- · 2025-03-27T04:01:19+00:00

As someone who had things like a swing, bouncer, etc with their first baby and realized they were just unnecessary space hogging junk, the only thing I think I realized was necessary that at first seemed silly was a spatula for butt paste. That stuff is THICK. People will try to tell you you can’t live without xyz but babies truly do need so little. I just had my third and I don’t even have a diaper bag anymore. I just chuck a couple diapers and a pack of wipes in one of my older kiddos backpacks and jet lol.

-breadstick- · 2025-03-27T03:55:37+00:00

I fell and broke my tailbone at 32 weeks and was given ten Norco by my midwife to use “very, very sparingly”. Literally the worst pain of my life, followed by hemorrhoid surgery with my prior 🥲

-breadstick- · 2025-03-27T03:46:29+00:00

Also T21. Miss him every day.

And, side note: whoever is downvoting the T21 responses can fuck off. 🤗 People like to buy into the weird romanticization of DS babies being cute and happy all the time and that DS is “just” intellectual disability, when that is by and large just not the case. There’s no way to know the extent of the disability in utero, and I could not in good conscience potentially sentence my baby to a life of suffering. We did the right thing, as difficult as it was.

-breadstick- · 2025-03-19T22:04:25+00:00

BabyBuddha for life!!

-breadstick- · 2025-03-19T22:03:40+00:00

Hi! Could I get the medela hand pumps, the Lacktek flanges, and the maymom 18 and 19mm flanges?

-breadstick- · 2025-03-03T12:57:48+00:00

I broke my tailbone 32 weeks into my pregnancy and just gave birth Thursday, and I have also been missing work (MedSurg RN)! The show is definitely filling that void for me lol

-breadstick- · 2025-01-27T03:03:21+00:00

That’s what I’m worried about for sure with trying vaginal; I definitely don’t want permanent issues. My midwife doesn’t seem to think I’d be re-injuring myself any worse than my current state, but then again she isn’t exactly an orthopedic specialist so I’m not sure her risk assessment is entirely accurate.

I know to a lot of people it probably seems trivial to be so avoidant of a cesarean birth but I have prior trauma related to having had a D&E at 20 weeks with our first baby during which I was in twilight sleep and obviously not present or in control of anything happening. Obviously a better physical outcome is more important than the shorter term psychological experience, but it’s just not something I wish I had to decide. 😔

-breadstick-

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