Your mothers' take on motherhood.

My first child was late and the doctor told the hospital I would have to be induced. On the appointed day I got on a bus and went to the hospital. I was in labour for 36 hours and not given any pain relief as it was a hospital run by Catholic nuns who did not believe in it. My daughter weighed 6lb.10 oz. She was a fractious baby who did not sleep all night and got us up at all hours for several months.

When I had my son 3 years later things were very different. The birth was much easier and I got pain relief. He weighed 8lb 2oz. Also he slept nearly all night almost from the beginning.

Everyone's different.

My mother only ever pointed out the maternity hospital where I was born and said that when my dad told my grandmother I was a girl she didn't believe him.(I was the only girl on his side of the family in 5 births)

Gosh, this has been a really interesting and informative thread! I had never heard of twilight anaesthesia. My Mum never talked about actual childbirth, but the night I was born, there was a storm, howling wind and rain, slates flying off roofs type of night. I remember just after my brother was born, at home, and the district nurse visiting, I was desperate to see inside her black bag as I had been told this was where my brother came from!

My mum had three huge babies and she was less than 5 feet 2 at full height. I am the oldest and was the lightest at 9 1/2 lb. I was also by far the shortest so the others were long and solid while l was short and plump. My brother and l were born at home, which was normal for rural Norfolk in the sixties. My dad actually helped the midwife with the gas and air machine. Mum also had pethidine as it was available by then. We were all very overdue. My sister was born in hospital as my mother had high blood pressure and was on bed rest and to be induced. This was 1970 and my dad's parents looked after my brother and me. We were only allowed to visit the hospital on Sunday afternoons - visiting hours were extremely strict then. Apparently, my grandmother had styled my hair in the manner of her own daughters from the 1930s and my brother's hair like her sons' hair in the forties. When it came to the time to be induced, my mother asked the doctor if she was likely to be induced that day as she had a history of big babies. The reply was that she was the doctor and she would decide whether or not she would be induced that day and in any case it was a perfectly average sized baby. After the doctor had left, the sister came over to tell my mother off for upsetting the doctor! My sister was born later that day weighing 10 lb, 3 oz.
I fitted after the birth of my first baby, eclampsia, so I was told that any subsequent babies had to be born in hospital and I needed to stay in at least one if not two nights with them. In the event, this was a good thing as my second baby swallowed some mucus during the birth and the medical staff were on hand to deal with it. Both my younger babies were spine to spine - very painful!- but by the nineties epidurals were well established and l was glad of them.
I think childbirth has actually gone backwards in recent years as mothers and babies are rushed home far too quickly and there are lots of issues that can occur in the first few days.

My DM talked to me about her experiences once I was pregnant. Mine was her first grandchild so it all came back to her. Too much information! They did have contraceptives but they were cumbersome and she envied our generation with the Pill.
She remembered her own mother telling her that she was wrapped in a red woollen blanket when she was born as they had nothing ready. By that we deduced that she was premature because her mother wasn't the kind of person not to be prepared. Her mother had died long before this conversation..

I was born in 1957 in hospital and am an only child.

My mother said it was the worst pain she had ever experienced. I was 7 1/2 pounds so not huge.

She told me that she never wanted children but only had me because my Dad's friends wives were all having children and my dad was keen to have a family.

My mum wanted a girl but I never felt close to her. She went back to work when I was one and my grandparents looked after me. My dad had a good job so I don't think they needed the money. None of her friends worked when they had children.

After I had my first child my mother was convinced that I had an epidural as I coped with the pain better than she did. I didn't have an epidural. I had pethidine and slept through most of the labour until the pushing bit at the end, which was about four or five pushes.

A few months after I had my first baby I bumped into a girl I used to work with. She was now pregnant and asked me how long my labour had been. When I told her about 17 hours she looked horrified, obviously imagining me hanging on to the bed rail screaming for all that time. I decided not to admit that I'd slept through half of it - didn't want to spoil the drama!

My mother had a hard time with my brother, a forceps delivery in a nursing home in the 1930s. I think I was supposed to be born in a nursing home, too - this was 1940, well before the NHS - but I came rather suddenly, at home. I think there was a doctor or nurse there. My mother couldn’t believe she was lucky enough to get the girl she wanted. She had what was called ‘ a monthly nurse’ - I think this was a nurse who cared for the mother and baby after the birth. I think all of this had to be paid for.

When I had a very difficult labour with my first child, I felt my mother hadn’t prepared me for how awful it might be. She had seemed to imply it wasn’t much trouble. I had been told my baby was small - in fact he was 9lb 6. I was in a maternity hospital, which was just as well. I simply can’t imagine having a baby at home. I had an epidural for my second one - bliss.

I was born in hospital. My mother was taken in for an induction as I was 3 weeks overdue.

Mum was 34, and had been married 9 years when I came along, weighing in at 8.5 lbs. I was born in hospital, but not told anything about it other than that.
My brother came along 2.5 years later and was a 10 pounder. The largest baby on the ward, with the tiniest cry. Mum did say that although she had big boobs, he wouldn't feed. (I think he got smothered) ☺️

I was only 14 when my Mum died so we hadn't really discussed labour in detail. However I found pregnancy and labour a bit of a doddle to be honest.

I was born at home just prior to the NHS, so when my mum got into terrible trouble with me stuck the Midwife called the Council Dr in to get us out of trouble. My mum never really got over it all and the Dr became our GP. He came and stayed with mum during her second labour and put her out for the last moments when my brother was born. It was all very Victorian but we all survived, although just how scarred she was by it all became evident when she was very old.
I had difficulties carrying babies to term but then relatively easy births.

SueDonim

I had two ‘back’ labours. As Elaine says, it occurs when the baby is facing the wrong way in the pelvis and causes pains in the back. Normally a foetus faces the back so that the widest part of the head fits through the widest part of the pelvis. If the baby isn’t so positioned, it’s a heck of a tight squeeze for the head to pass through the pelvis. Quart in a pint pot comes to mind! ???

That’s interesting and could explain the terrible back pains I experienced giving birth to my third. I can still remember moaning with the pain. My back is very dodgy these days but I put that down to overwork in the garden but I am wondering now.

I was born in the cottage hospital and mum said they weren’t allowed out of bed for several days and apart from feeding the nurses looked after baby ……. And loved doing so.

Mum did tell me grandma said when she gave birth they knotted a sheet across the top of the bed and she had to reach up and pull down on it when she had a contraction.

I was born in a drab inner city hospital as where my eight siblings. Life for my mum was a misery having babies one after the other living in my grandma’s house.
She always said to us that in the early 1950s women were not encouraged to use birth control and they could not afford to buy it. Child birth was horrendous and if men had to go through it populations would cease dramatically.
Not my words but my mums and I remember them well.

I don't know about births, but my poor mother struggled with motherhood in general. She was a highly intelligent woman who missed out on higher education because of her parents' Victorian attitudes. She carried that bitterness her whole life.

I think she loved us, but that was overshadowed by her deep frustrations and anti-men sentiments. It was quite a difficult upbringing.

My mother disliked babies, children, “ common “ people, anyone who wasn’t white, British, Church of England etc. No idea why she had children! She complained that she had to give birth at home “ because the hospitals were “ full up with unmarried mothers”.
She was quite bizarre!

Oh and my father was useless. Mum was getting twinges and suggested they head off. Dad didn't want to. Told her to wait as there was something good on TV.

I was born in a private nursing home. If we ever talked about childbirth she would just say it's so easy, darling, you just go into a slumber and suddenly you have a baby o-0

Never understood what on earth she was on about but I've found out, only recently, that she was given the twilight analgesia .

I was a honeymoon baby! I was born in a Nursing Home on the same day as triplets. Mum said all the midwives and nurses scooted off to watch this rare occurrence and left her on her own!

Did you have the twighlight analgesia?

ElaineI

MissAdventure

Ooh, a back labour!
I've heard of those. --but I don't know what they are--

Means the baby is lying with it's back towards the mothers back and if it stays that way in labour has to turn all the way round as it travels down. Sometimes leads to a longer and more painful labour. If it doesn't turn it is born facing up (face to pubes). DD2 was born that way though she was 5 weeks early.

Both my daughters were facing the wrong way and I had the terrible back pains and a long labour. I often wonder if it's the layout of my pelvic area, and maybe they were more comfortable that way round. Now 40 years later I have dreadful trouble in the pelvic and hip area and would really like an MRI scan.

Oh, that's big!
All these years later, and they can still get it wrong.
At least it keeps an element of surprise!

I was born at home in heavy snow in January. Fortunately my dad had a car as he had to fetch the midwife who wouldn’t otherwise have got there. She had a busy afternoon as I’m told she also delivered twins for a relative of my mother, one of whom was sadly stillborn, as well as the baby of a young girl on the street who hadn’t known she was pregnant (some of my layette went straight to her). My parents had been warned to expect a very small baby and I weighed in at ten and a half pounds. Incredibly the same thing happened to my DDIL seven years ago!

I arrived at 5 minutes passed 4,in the afternoon,"too late for dinner,too early for tea" and 3 days before my due date.
The great floods occured in Canvey Island that claimed many lives, on this day.
I was an easy delivery weighing 8lb 4oz.

My younger brother was a different story,mum had rhesus negative blood,he was lucky not to have been a blue baby,apparently he was in wrong position and had to be turned manually internally and she was stitched from "earhole to breakfast time", he developed an abcess on his nipple that had to be cut and drained,mum had a retained swab left inside her,they where in hospital for over 3 weeks,and during that time we moved to a house 20 miles away from where we lived before.

Blimey. Some of you had conversations with your mothers?