Grossness Part 2 (Delivery and Recovery)

WARNING Con't:  If you are squeamish in the least or you like rose-colored glasses concerning the miracle of life, don't read this.  Pregnancy is a messy, painful and sometimes downright gross process to get a cute little baby at the end.

The grossness continues from your pregnancy to delivery and even during your recovery.  Sorry to give you all this 'bad news'.  I will tell you now, I didn't know about a couple of the worst ones and they freaked me out.  I would've loved a TMI moment to prep me for one specific event in the hospital the day after delivery. You'll know better if it happens to you.

Delivery:

1. All in all you probably know what is coming here.  Whether you go into labor naturally or are induced your water will break and it will feel odd and if you're not induced it'll likely be a little grosser than being 'popped' over the garbage at the end of your hospital bed.  If you have a c-section scheduled and nothing happens before then you get to skip this rather odd sensation.
2. You might lose control of a few bodily functions in labor.  While I will be forever grateful that I didn't poop during my pushing, I puked enough to impress my nurse thoroughly.  That was horrible as I hate HATE throwing up.  Oh, you're still stuck on the idea you might poop on the bed/table?  Yeah....that was my favorite discovery from the various research I did prior to our induction.  I was terrified that I would do that--never even thought that I might get sick instead.
3. If no one has clued you in yet, the baby that comes out of you will NOT look like a baby on most TV shows.  (I can hear the majority of you going DUH and I'm right there with you.)  If this shocks you, please turn on some TLC shows instead of prime time hits.
4. Related to #3--it is okay to think your precious new bundle looks like a purple squishball all gunked up.  Since it is entirely possible that they DO look just like that there is no shame in it.  You will still treasure the picture of that gunky squishball on your chest and show it to all those out there who have no interest in a picture of your child until after the first bath.
5. If there were any issues during delivery that required cutting or stitching you're stuck laying there afterwards while you get patched up.  Most of this gets to be done while you are too busy staring at that squishball so you have an excellent distraction.  If you allow your baby to go for the APGAR testing and other things (and depending on severity) you might be there with the doctor long after your baby has even left for the nursery with your partner.  This may not be particularly gross but it can be awkward if you didn't think ahead to that possibility.  I actually didn't really know why the doctor was still down there after my baby was run off (turns out the damage was awful on me but no one told me that day).

Post Delivery:

1. You will BLEED.  Don't think you've bled from a period until after giving birth.  I always had very heavy periods and was amazed at the amount of red that would come out monthly.  This makes you wonder if you need a transfusion rather than another ten pads or so.  I'm told there is just as much blood post c-section.  I'll find that out later and see if I can get by on less than a year's supply of pads (okay, it was more like 4 months) in 2 months this time.
2. Those gas pains during your pregnancy?  They're not gone yet!  This isn't really scary unless you've been told that you had a fourth degree tear (that would be a tear from vag to rectum and all the muscles in between).  You hear that and you become instantly fearful of all farts and poops for months.
3. Here is the one that I wish someone had told me about in advance...on par with the bleeding--I was waddling to the bathroom in my fancy new mesh undies and jumbo pad with my tucks (the joy and relief that can be found with tucks deserves a post all of its own!).  I get to the bathroom and pull down my meshies to sit and something drops.  All I felt was something fall out of me.  I look down at my meshies and here is a glob of deep red jello the size (LITERALLY) of a racquetball ball.  That would be larger than golf and smaller than tennis.  After freaking out and dumping the meshie, pad and glob into the trash I figured out from the nurse that it was a clot of blood and though quite large in size, still normal.  Brace yourselves for any clots of any size and just make sure to tell your nurse so they know that it happened.
4. If you breastfeed the leaking boobs are a godsend and I wish them on you for many many months.  If you don't, start buying up the nursing pads and feel free to double up for a couple days at least until your body gets the message that you're not using those juices right.  I leaked for a couple weeks but only mildly.

Sadly, don't think the grossness ends here.  If you are morbidly curious you can take a mirror and look at the damage but know this--it looks like a swollen red WARZONE.  Your body just did battle with itself and passing the largest thing it is capable of (until your next kid anyways).  There were casualties.  There is a reason I barely felt that clot fall even though it was large....I looked because I was told the day I left the hospital that I had a 4th degree tear and that was why I had needed so much pain meds the last couple days.  Brilliant timing right?  Hey, sign this to be released and by the way you should probably fear pooping for the next 6 or more weeks....I was already scared of the next BM because I was in pain, I just didn't know the extent of why I should fear it.

If you don't go investigating your battle scars, then you get to skip that lovely visual and move straight into diapers, spit rags and general baby messes that can almost put to shame the warzone you didn't look at.  It really is a good thing that those kids are so dang cute!