The Reality of Pregnancy, Labor and Delivery

Everyone says that pregnancy, labor and delivery are a miracle, a special time for a mother and her family; a time of joy, happiness, euphoria, and excitement. People swoon over pregnant women, rubbing their large bellies, giving congratulations with a wide and bright smile, and asks about due dates, gender, names, and how excited the new mother to be is. No one ever seems to explain the difficulties, the hardships, the hemorrhoids, the urine incontinence, the pain, the vomiting, the lack of sleep, and the constant discomfort. Pregnancy, labor and delivery are indeed a joyous and miraculous time in any womans life (and for her family members) but it is truly a difficult, painful, uncomfortable, and at times, a completely miserable experience in life.

Being pregnant is not for everyone and it is most definitely not for pansies who can not tolerate pain, farting, bloating, vomiting, sweating, bleeding, raging and uncontrollable hormones, being kicked from the inside, or the thought of something that seems so alien growing inside of a person just to have it explode out of the vagina in nine months. Pregnancy is disgusting, painful, annoying, tedious, time consuming, and extremely labor intensive. Even though becoming pregnant for the first or the last time is quite an exciting time one should know and understand that it is not a fun time but it is indeed a sweaty, gassy, achy, cramping and swelling time of uncontrollable crying, anger, laughter, and peeing in your underwear (and always packing an extra pair before you leave) for nine whole months and you are not even allowed to drown your pain and sorrows in a well deserved glass of wine.

People always say that pregnant women have a special and beautiful glow. Well, when one is up all night racing to the bathroom to pee and throw up (sometimes simultaneously), have been tossing and turning to find a comfortable position without a foot getting lodged into their rib cage, waking up in a puddle of sweat, and starting the day with severe morning sickness, they are bound to glow, and smell a little too. Not only does one have a perspiration induced glow to the face, but pregnancy also causes acne, funky body odor, hair loss, bleeding gums, and in rare cases even tooth decay. A pregnant woman has to worry about urine incontinence, hemorrhoids, swelling of the hands and feet, sore and tender breasts and nipples, and embarrassing, uncontrollable, sometimes explosive and very public farts. If one is a pansy, it would be suggested that one should look into surrogacy.

If one person has heard it, everyone has, people claim that labor and delivery is a beautiful and magical experience, but the truth of the matter is, it is not beautiful, it is bloody, sweaty, painful, and some women even poop on the bed. Labor and delivery looks like a scene straight from an alien horror film and feels like it too. Even though it truly is a magical experience, the joy does not settle in until ones vagina is sown back together, fully healed, and when the newborn is sleeping so ones nipples do not feel like they are going to crack and fall off.

Labor is a back breaking, vagina stretching, and filled with unbearable pain that is completely unavoidable when one becomes pregnant. When one goes into labor, the uterus cramps, tenses, and feels like it is about to explode. The pain is mind numbing, making it impossible to think or even breathe. The pain can not be compared to any other one may feel in life. The pain will make one feel dizzy, sick, tired, and angry, but when it is all over pure euphoria will pour out of ones heart and make one cry in a very different way when one sees their child for the very first time lying in their arms. Followed by the bloody, grotesque mess the placenta makes in a bucket on the floor at the end of ones hospital bed, of course.

Pregnancy, labor, and delivery is a very hard, mind numbing, painful, and sickening process but if one desires a child, someone needs to get pregnant and birth the child and that means going through the difficulties and hardships that will be presented. Even though the experience of pregnancy of birthing a child is far from satisfactory, the outcome is quite possibly the most beautiful and warming feeling that one could ever hold in their arms. After the pain has ceased, the beauty comes to light. When one holds their new baby in their arms for the first time, the storm clouds part, the sun shines down, creating light and love on a brand new day. Even though pregnancy, labor and delivery feels like walking through the depths of hell, one will realize that they have actually reached the highest heaven when it is all over.