If you are pregnant, you may want to get yourself a maternity tee shirt printed with the words “Keep Your Labor and Delivery Horror Stories To Yourself”. Seriously. If you have not noticed it already, pregnant women are a magnet for people who want to tell their delivery room tales of woe. I am not sure exactly what is behind the urge to disclose embarrassing, painful and/or scary labor and delivery experiences to women who are definitely going to be going through the process of labor and delivery some time in the not too distant future.
During both of my pregnancies, I had to stop people mid – sentence when they started telling me about the things that they had experienced during labor and delivery. In hindsight, I may have seemed a bit rude, but I did not think that hearing stories about everything that could go wrong during labor and delivery would be very helpful to me. I was already aware that there would be plenty of pain involved, and I was preparing myself for that by doing everything that I could to read stories of births that had gone well, in the hopes that I could cultivate enough positive mental energy to create a wonderful birth experience for myself.
Even though neither of my births went exactly as I had hoped, I continue to believe that birth is a normal, safe, and natural experience much of the time. Also, when I think about what I would want to say to a pregnant women about labor and delivery, the main thought that comes to mind is that whatever will happen, will happen. You will get through it, and months later as you are watching your baby grow, you will realize that while the experience of labor and delivery was unique, you are more than likely back to your old self again albeit perhaps a little stronger and wiser for the experience.