Giving birth is not the easiest moment in a woman's life. It hurts, you're worried about your baby and everything is so stressful.
So, it's no surprise that sometimes women say some pretty strange things about and during their childbirth. Here we share some of Reddit's finest stories of unusual deliveries during childbirth.
(Content edited for clarity).
We Hope This Wasn’t What It Sounded Like
“I’m a medic with an emergency medical service, and I have had a few of these cases where the mother had birthed in the ambulance. The one that sticks out in my memory is the petite figure of one of the mothers.
Now the contractions are well underway, and due to her low blood pressure, we’re not allowed to administer painkillers like Tramadol, as it might kill her. So while this poor woman is screaming her heart out, her husband is sitting in the front seat looking terrified.
Suddenly she raises her head, and screams ‘OH MY GOD, BABY’S HEAD IS BIGGER THAN YOUR FIST!’ You can imagine the internal battle that was fought by the urge to maintain a professional demeanor and understand that this was a woman in extreme pain, who was using the best metaphor she could think of, and the urge to laugh uncontrollably because, holy life, he fisted her and she actually knew how big his fist was, like they’d practiced for this specifically.”
A Good Catch From The Doctor
“My second child was born unexpectedly at home, a story which involves me holding the child’s head, half out of my wife, until the paramedics arrived to finish the job. Luckily this was only a matter of minutes, I did not make my wife stay in that uncomfortable position for long. My wife’s doctor knows this whole story.
For the birth of our third child, her labor was induced. The ObGyn examined my wife’s progress at one point, announced: ‘I think that you’ll be ready to deliver at ….oh, 12:10.’ With that, she went off to lunch.
Cut to 12:05 or so and the doctor comes back in. My wife (who is hypnobirthing and has no medicines) is trying to do everything but push, I’m on one side of her and a nurse is on the other, poised to do that hold her legs back thing, and the doc goes over to get gloved up. ‘I need to push!’ screams my wife.
‘Go ahead,’ says the doctor from a few feet away, and a baby starts coming out of my wife.
The image that followed is frozen in my memory. The doctor lunges across the room with her single gloved hand to catch the baby, while the nurse who was trying to glove the other hand clamped down on it because she was half finished, and the doc is stretched out like an umpire calling somebody safe at home.
Having been here before without the aid of gloves or any of that sterile stuff previously, I ask her from my front row seat, ‘You want me to get that?’
She did not.”
A Whole Dozen Tales
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“I have a few funny stories. I am an OBGYN resident doctor.
- Lady was pushing for 2 hours and the head was finally crowning. She had like 1-2 pushes left to deliver the baby. Suddenly, ‘never mind I don’t want to do this anymore!’ People aren’t in their right mind truly so rather than coddle them it is honestly best to just sternly say, ‘No, you’re getting this baby out now, Ok? Now push!‘ She delivered the next push.
- Had a complete addict try to deliver her baby with her legs together. Normally that would make it hard to deliver anyhow, but for her, the baby kept coming and just delivered behind her closed legs. One of us basically threw our body under her back to keep her from sitting on her baby’s head.
- While the baby is crowning, ‘Why??? Why do I keep doing this to myself?’ (as in keep getting pregnant).
- Teenager delivering her baby and the baby daddy is there who is also a teen. Pooping is common in deliveries… I’d say 30-50% of the time. Anyhow she starts pooping and gets really self-conscious and turns to her boyfriend yelling, ‘Don’t LOOOOOOOK!’
- After the baby delivers, you still need to deliver the placenta. Usually, not a big deal but a lot of blood and fluid comes with it often. As she pushes it out her husband’s face goes white and he says, ‘Woah.’ and has to sit down as he faints.
- Had an interracial couple – Mexican mother, black dad. She had broken up with him after getting pregnant. As she is pushing (without an epidural) she yells, ‘JESUS CHRIST I HATE THAT [deragotary racial slur that doesn’t need repeating]!’ Not much you can do other than ignoring it.
- Sometimes people are just ignorant. I had a lady come in who was >42 weeks pregnant. I’m sorry, even the most crunchy of midwives will agree it’s time for that baby to come out. Anyhow the dad is all like, ‘What do you mean you’re going to induce her to deliver? You think I’m going to let you get up on top of her and jump on her belly then reach down and pull my baby out?!’ Wow dude. Also ‘You keep talking about contractions! What are they?!’ This was his third child. He didn’t know what a contraction was. Wat da?
- As I mentioned above women often poop while pushing. A lady had a massive BM which really stank up the room. She turns to her husband and mother and yells, ‘who the heck farted?!’ That was embarrassing.
- After delivery, things can really burn after being stretched out that much. I had a lady exclaim, ‘Jesus, I could really use an ice cube on my taint!’
- Often when women are still dilating while in labor we do our best to just make them as comfortable as possible, relax between contractions, and let labor dilate them. Anyhow, one couple took ‘relax between contractions’ to mean ‘I’m going to do some mouth stuff on my wife who has mucus, amniotic fluid, and blood oozing from her.’ Ughhhh.
- Usually, in a c-section, the father of the baby sits with the mother in the OR as we do the operation. Sometimes it’s the patient’s mother, too. In this case, it was a young white couple where the father didn’t want to be in the OR. When the baby was cut out the patient couldn’t see it yet b/c the curtain was still up. Her mother who was present goes, ‘Well, the baby isn’t black!’ The patient exclaims, ‘Mom, seriously!?’
- Some people are into doing it SUUUPER naturally. So they have fans, incense, and storm music in the background. Often they will use chanting to calm themselves. One lady would whisper, ‘Peace…Peace…Peace’ between pushes. Anyhow as the baby was crowning and she was really feeling that ring of fire she half snaps out of her Zen character and yells, ‘Peace!…Peeeeeace!!! Oh effing Jesus, it’s on fire! Someone put water on it!'”
Lost In Translation
“I am not an ob-gyn but I was questioning a patient in the ER about some other health problem, she wasn’t carrying at that time. When I got to the part about the gynecological history I asked how many kids did she have and how were they born.
She had two kids and were both born with C-section. I should clarify that this was in Spain and the patient was a gypsy. Now gypsies are not usually educated in the same way as Spanish people, so their accents can seem a little peculiar in comparison to a Spanish person’s.
Now, the lady told me she had 2 kids and 2 c-sections and I asked her why she had to deliver by c-section she said because the first kid was a ‘come coño’. Well, this can be translated as ‘cat eater’.
This lady was convinced that her first child was going to eat her cat and that he had to be taken out before he did. You can imagine my surprise. At first, I didn’t understand and left the room after the questioning still puzzled. I went and started digging in her file and found out that the c-section had to be done because after she broke water the doctors noticed the amniotic fluid was filled with baby waste, usually when a baby release waste in-utero, it is a sign that the baby is suffering and has to come out quick, that was why she had a c-section. Now here is why it is funny:
- In-utero baby waste is called meconio.
- The doctors probably told this lady that she had to get a c-section because the baby comes with meconio.
- Comes with meconio = ‘viene con meconio’ in Spanish.
- ‘Viene con meconio’ sounds a lot like ‘viene comecoño’ (cat eater).
Imagine being told your whole life that your mom had to get a c-section because you were going to eat her cat when you actually almost died during childbirth.”
A Little Demonic
“My sister had had miscarriages again and again and one seriously threatened her health. She had viable eggs but the doctor advised her against trying to get pregnant again.
They were discussing adoption (as we had been adopted when we were young) and while it was a very viable option there are a lot of hoops to jump through (especially since her husband didn’t have any living family and we had cut ties from both of our parents and a majority of our family). We joked that I should get pregnant and give her the baby and a lightbulb went on.
They asked if the doctor could harvest viable eggs and fertilize them if I would be willing to carry a baby for them. Fast forward about a year later and they had eggs ready to and I went in and got pregnant with her baby. The doctor that implanted the eggs was there when my nephew was born as well. Fortunately, when I gave birth to my nephew, it was a quick labor. Apparently, though I was stoic as heck, my eyes would roll back in my head every time I had to push or had a really tough contraction, but I didn’t say anything. I bit into my lip though until it was bleeding during the last couple of pushes. Apparently, everyone looked up from the baby and I’m streaming blood from my mouth. Freaked my sister and the doctor out for a moment lol.”
The Lady Might Be A Cow
“With both of my children, I cursed quietly under my breath the entire time because I watched an episode of Mythbusters that said cursing helps with the pain. The nurses said that I came up with the quietest and most unique curses they ever heard.
I also made some sort of mooing sound during contractions. I have no idea where that came from.
With my youngest, I was pushing, she was about to crown, and I looked at the doctor and asked when I could be released because I didn’t want to be stuck in the hospital for very long. We were out 24 hours later.
The only time I yelled was during my first labor when my husband wasn’t holding my leg correctly during pushing. I screamed, ‘Hold it correctly you effing idiot!’
I was also present at the birth of my niece. I may have yelled ‘Oh FUDGE’ while she was coming out.”
This Is Going To Hurt You More Than It’s Going To Hurt Me
“Because of my glorious epidural (am also an anesthesiologist) I was able to rest and save my energy for the pushing stage of labor. My husband (not in the medical field whatsoever) refused to believe I was actually progressing in my labor because of how comfortable I appeared. He was under the impression that women must scream and thrash around and go through horrendous pain during childbirth so I must not ACTUALLY be having the baby. Please note, I love OB and it is my favorite part of my practice so I knew what my body was going to experience– thus choosing an epidural early on for pain control.
My husband was so amazed by this and my calm demeanor that he was in some serious denial. When the nurses told me I was fully dilated and my OB came in to deliver our baby girl my husband was asked to hold my leg. He grabbed my foot, looked down, and immediately turned white and sunk to the floor out cold. He ended up eating my ice chips and breathing my oxygen while I held my own leg in the stirrup and pushed out our baby.”
The Girl Was Not A Girl
“We hired a doula for our first kid 4 years ago. She told us a story that I still laugh about. She was with a couple that had been told they were having a daughter as their first kid. So like first-time parents they outdid themselves with everything pink, sparkly and frilly, the whole 9 yards.
Mom goes into labor and they call the doula to come in to be there for the birth. Mom’s pushing, dad is cheerleading nervously.
The baby pops out and the doula notices that the sonogram tech that said they were having a girl messed up. The dad is too busy to notice anything is amiss. So the doula tells the dad to do a finger and toe count to clue him in. So the dad looks at the baby, see 10 fingers and 10 toes and one tiny weeny.
Now he’d been told that he’s having a daughter for the past 6 months and sees this and the first thing he screams is ‘OH MY GOODNESS! MY DAUGHTER HAS A SCHLONG!'”
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
“When I was in labor, I went from 2cm to 8cm in less than 3 hours (we’re talking SUPERRR long, intense contractions that don’t even fully let up before the next one starts) and I was begging for an epidural.
The nurse calmly told me that the anesthesiologist was busy with a c-section and wouldn’t make it in time.
She ended up giving me a mild painkiller (the equivalent of about half a dosage of children’s Tylenol) which did nothing but make me dizzy and pissed me off, but I kept it to myself until I got into the delivery room.
Once I started getting ‘pushing pains’ that same freaking nurse told me not to push yet because there were 2 or 3 interns who hadn’t arrived yet.
So, to fight off the urge to push, I SCREAMED. Like battle cry echoed off the walls. The nurse told me to be quiet because I’d scare the other mums, to which I replied (still screaming) ‘THEY SHOULD BE SCARED!!’
She got a good laugh out of that, and then I lost my temper with her.”
Sometimes You Curse To Lighten The Mood
“While I was in labor, a very tense labor beset by multiple complications and attended by grim-faced medical personnel and my increasingly worried parents (who were there because I had just turned 18), there was a break between contractions. I was slumped, exhausted, trying to catch my breath and thinking seriously that I might not make it through. I very clearly remember watching my mother cry openly, tears streaming down her face.
Then, from the next birthing suit, came the usual calls for, ‘push, push, ONE MORE TIME!’ A long, low moan, a baby’s wails, people rushing about. Murmuring. Then this woman screams stridently, ‘What do you mean she’s a boy? I AM HAVING A BABY GIRL. THEY SAID I WAS HAVING A GIRL. The baby’s room is pink and yellow, you jerks.’
It was like the sun broke through the clouds. My entire room broke into panicky giggles, which turned into genuine laughter, and everyone was shushing everyone else, doctors and nurses included. Schadenfreude to the rescue!
Very happy ending for 22 hours of pain and worry.”
The Joke That Got Out Of Hand
“My friend had an awkward moment at the birth of his first child. He and his wife apparently had an ongoing joke that the baby was going to come out black (they were both white, but their regular mail carrier was a black guy). I don’t know how the joke started, but it lasted through her pregnancy.
When the baby was delivered my friend looks at his wife and says, ‘I guess you were right, she’s not black!’
Two of the nurses that helped in the delivery were black and they both stopped and gave him a very stern look. He said he tried to fix it by saying, ‘No, it’s not an insult, it’s just a joke.’
One of them left the room and the other just glared at him so he dug his hole deeper by saying, ‘See, we know a black guy….’ At that point, his wife just told him to shut up before they kicked them out of the hospital.”
The Not-So-Natural Birth
“My dad loves to tell this story. My mom had a very intense and almost tragic birth with me, to be honest, she was so full of medicine she remembers none of it.
Flash forward to my brother’s due date coming up. Mom, not having remembered her first birth, insisted she wanted an all natural the second round. Was set on using the leftover money to buy a new diamond bracelet.
So, the day comes and she is in her room, dad comes in after talking with the family waiting outside and asks her how she is holding up.
My mom reaches over, stretches all five feet and a round belly to grab hold of his shirt, yanks him down to eye level and hisses ‘go get me some medicine or DON’T COME BACK’. Dad ran. Found a doctor to give her medicine. Was allowed back in to watch the birth of his only son. All on New Year’s Eve.”
The Video Tells The Tale
“My mom recorded me on the way to the hospital laughing hysterically. They joked about the gate guards doing a random vehicle check. (Military base). Oldest brother on the phone with her telling her to be nice to me.
During labor with my daughter, I had my best friend and mother beside my bed. Husband was hiding in the corner trying to not hear me. My mom walked away for maybe 3 seconds… I, 26 years old, said ‘Mommy’. Might sound normal to some but I haven’t called my mom ‘mommy’ since I was 3. She thought it was sweet and told my oldest brother she WAS being nice to me.
First the video and now this… She thought she was telling him a sweet story but he knew it embarrassed me. Sometimes brothers know best… but the video was my idea. Comedy GOLD! I enjoy sharing the video with pregnant moms and those that want children.”
The Cycle Of Hate
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“I was at a delivery of a woman who just kept screaming things like ‘I HATE YOU, SHUT UUUUP!!’ to her SO. When she was told to push, she would then yell ‘I CAN’T I CAN’T I’M SO TIIIIIRED’ at the nurses. Then she’d start apologizing when the contractions ended. So it was this cycle of intense screaming and yelling followed by apologies.
After what seemed like forever, the baby was out. In the mom’s defense, the kid had a massive head.
I’ve been to probably 15 deliveries so far in my little fledgling career, and she was the most screamy of them all.”
They Keep Giving Out Girls Not Boys
“When my mother was pregnant she and my dad decided to have an amnio. A stand-in doctor was there the day she found out the results, and despite mum’s instructions that she did not want to be told the gender, the doctor congratulated her on having a healthy little boy.
My mum freaked out and decided not to tell my dad, so as not to ruin the surprise.
Fast forward to the day of my birth, I’m brought into this bright world. The doctor congratulates my mother on her little girl. My mum responds by yelling ‘You’ve got to be effing kidding me!’
Silence from everyone in the room. The doctor then has a serious chat with my mum about loving me even though I am a girl, etc, etc.
Turns out the amnio results were mixed up with another woman of the same name. Yeah, quite the confuzzle.”
The Literary Joke
“For background, my husband and I are huge fans of Patrick Rothfuss.
When my son was born, I was in early labor (12 hour periods of contractions on and off that never got closer together) for 3 weeks, active labor for ~29 hours, and pushed for 5 hours. At around hour 3 of pushing, I had gotten into a really good rhythm of 3 pushes per contraction and then a break until the next contraction. During one contraction my husband is supporting one leg and leans over and tells me, ‘Third time pays for all.’ Which is a line from one of Patrick’s books.
I busted out laughing and then cursed at him for interrupting my concentration while pushing. Looking back it was hilarious, but I could have killed him at the time.”