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17 women share what it really felt like to give birth, and it's mind-blowing

"My throat was making those deep guttural sounds completely without my involvement. It was so bizarre."

Image via Canva/kieferpix

Women share what it felt like to give birth.

Giving birth is a bewildering experience, and only women who have given birth know *exactly* what it's really like.

Every woman has a unique birth story to share, and no two are like. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there were 3,622,673 births in the United States in 2024.

To help others understand what giving birth really feels like, women opened up about their personal birthing experiences—and didn't spare any details. These are 17 real-life birthing stories from women who describe exactly what giving birth feels like.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"It felt like my lower body was on fire." - TKmj2503

"Obviously painful but then it becomes out of body experience i swear. I remember hearing in the distance the midwife comment to the trainee "Ok, we know we are close because the cow sounds are coming now" and in my head I thought 'Who's making cow sounds?' Me....it was me... full breath, deep, cow sounds coming from deep within me for the final pushes 🤣 When you're in that moment, you don't care about the pain. You want it done. Nature is crazy! To all the women who said they were told to be quiet or not make such noises, f*ck them. To any partner looking to be supportive, embrace the raw experience of child birth and join in😅." - Shepford

"My throat was making those deep guttural sounds completely without my involvement. It was so bizarre." - User Unknown

"At first like period cramps, then like over the top period cramps, then I had epidural and felt absolutely nothing till the end." - thelastsurvivorof83

"For me, the contractions were 1 million percent worse than actually pushing the baby out. When you’re pushing it feels like your vagina has been set on fire, but for me anyway, when the midwife told me I was crowning, I knew that the hell and horror of labor was so close to being over so it gave me the motivation to get the baby OUTTA THERE. But the contractions are out of this world painful. And I didn’t have epidural both times as I gave birth at home and had no choice. I didn’t even scream I literally roared like a wild fucking tiger. It’s rough, but weirdly you forget the pain within days of your baby being born." - HolidayWishbone1947

birth, giving birth, birthing gif, birth gif, screaming birth Get Out Birth GIF Giphy

"Its so weird with the epidural. There's no pain but I could feel the intense deep pressure from the inside. Similar to when I overeat and I feel super bloated and need to poop? But like 5x more intense. There was such an immediate sense of emptiness and relief as soon as baby was out though, so bizarre." - ano-ba-yan

"Like bubble gut diarrhea and the most ungodly menstrual cramps mixed with SI joint pain and 10/10 back spasms, then like when you’ve been constipated for three days and you’re grunting so hard to push a poop out but it keeps sliding back in no matter how hard you push. You swear it’s 110 degrees and you’re sweating and thirsty but they’ll only let you eat three ice cubes. Then twelve nurses come rushing into the room and it’s just coming out and you can’t stop it and you know for sure that your lady bits are going to rip open. Then it actually does tear but the giant poop came out so it’s fine. You can rest now. Things get fuzzy as organized chaos erupts and someone is yelling for a surgeon. Then a yucky, grey, wide eyed jelly fish gets plopped on your chest as a rush of delirious emotions floods your brain and you look at it and say it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life with tears in your eyes and you swear there’s a golden light shining down on you while the angels are singing a chorus. Then you realize two surgeons are poking around in your hoo haa and the golden light is a literal giant spotlight shining on your under carriage, your playlist has gone rogue and is playing Istanbul Not Constantinople and your husband is ghostly white and looks like he’s about to fall over. The nurse shouts out the time and date of birth and apparently it’s tomorrow? Two days later you get rolled out of the hospital and say 10/10, would do again." - PantsIsDown

"An enormous downward pressure that feels like it’s in your back door but it’s not. Only really painful toward the end. Things become very primal; you roar and scream to manage the overwhelming sensations but really your body is doing the work. The ring of fire is very real and you know when you are in it! Source: induction without pain meds." - clayfawn

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"Like taking an extremely painful dump, essentially. There’s a lot of pressure with tightness around your belly that comes and goes but gets closer together. The pressure is so intense, like you’re pushing all your organs out. Then burning pain when they crown, but once baby is fully delivered, immediate relief. Comparatively, delivering the placenta is nbd. It’s a few contractions then and you’re all done and feel like you just ran a marathon or did intense exercise. So much relief." - Minute_Cookie9771

"Like I was being cut with a serrated blade from my rib cage to my vag, and with no cesarean or perineal tears. I imagine it’s what a fish being gutted feels like." - karatekiddo

"Personally I think that contractions feel similarly to bowel cramps. It’s an intense cramping feeling that starts in the internal center of your body - the true trunk of your torso. The pressure is so deep and so hard and so intense that it’s blinding. And at the very peak of the contraction it’s a sharpness, akin to stabbing pain once you are in transition (so, 7-10 cm and effacing to 100% in your cervical status). The pushing itself is a sort of relief because the peaks of pain are blunted, and the reflex if allowed to naturally occur is really sort of nice in comparison. The baby descending into your vaginal canal is a heavy, dull, stretching pressure that is unlike anything I can compare. Sort of bowel-movement adjacent as well? You can feel their little head moving downward. The crowning - a stretch and a pop (if you tear- I did both times) but it’s not all that painful in the moment because of the adrenaline and everything else. I tore to the second degree and truly did not notice enough to care, I just wanted the pressure to stop. Once their head is out, most babies bodies sort of easily slither after. (Shoulder dystocia not withstanding.) And then the cord feels ropey, they set it aside(mine was placed on my belly for one birth lol), and the placenta feels like a huge period clot or jelly sort of just schlooping on out. Not before they 'massage' your stomach to encourage it - the 'fundal massage' sucks and helps the placenta come out. Then you get sewn up if you tore. Then you shake from the hormonal dump. Then you lay there and have a WHOLE lot of feelings." - mildtomoderately

"I had a 9lb, 2oz baby without an epidural. It hurt like hell but your hormones do something wild and your body just takes over. It was an out of body experience. I remember very little of how much it hurt." - Ticklish_Pomegranate

epidural, epidurals, epidural gif, birth, birth gif Max Greenfield Comedy GIF by CBS Giphy

"I was hallucinating in and out of consciousness the pain was so terrible. I was too far gone to get an epidural when I arrived, the gas made me vomit and the nurse told me to push. I remember thinking 'I'd rather be dead than continue to feel this pain'. It was the worse day of my life." - RecognitionMediocre6

"It’s like that monster turd you once did that started progressing and you know it’s so big it’s going to rip your *sshole. It burns, it stretches, it hurts! But you also know that the only way forward is through and you have to push this monster baby out. Like that but x10. Honestly- labor is the painful part, once it’s time to push and you can direct all that pain into something, it’s fantastic." - foxyloxylady

"I honestly don't know how to describe it. I had a non medicated vaginal birth. Contractions are just your whole belly just cramping up, it builds and just when you think you can't take it it goes away. Eventually they got so intense I just groaned through them. Sometimes making what my husband described as demon noises. I labored in the shower and the water + heat really does help. Then when pushing on the bed it gets really tiring but you do get motivated to be done and just meet your baby. The only time I had a oh shit moment was when she was crowning and I had the searing pain of the ring of fire. I took a minute, rallied and pushed through it. Honestly getting my cervix checked was worse than any contractions or pushing. Then when they push on your belly after, that's pretty awful." - TheSadSalsa

birth, after birth, baby gif, birth gif, giving birth Season 1 Baby GIF by Outlander Giphy

"Open your mouth as wide as it will go and use two fingers to hook & pull it even wider from the side and that is what it feels like down below as the head is coming out. The contractions are probably the most powerful period pains that you have ever had and the overwhelming urge to push is just like when you cannot stop yourself vomiting, its coming out whether you like it or not. Saying that, its worth it and when you look at your baby, the overwhelming rush of love makes that pain forgettable immediately." - jlelvidge

"Ok I was lucky, I had three natural births each with no epidural or any gas and air. I wasn't against it, I was lucky enough to manage without. And that's the point - birth is very much about how lucky you get on the day with your baby, your body, the right medical team and much more. Contractions hurt a lot but honestly I suffered a large burn on my midsection years before birth and that was out of my mind type of pain that nothing eased. Contractions were bad, but never felt as painful as that massive burn. You feel a pressure build up as you need to push, and the pushing feels like a relief. It's kind of impressive how the animalistic part of your body takes over and you have to go along for the ride. My whole body was getting involved when I had to push, you feel it in your very soul. 10/10, would do it again, it hurts but for me it was okay and never reached my benchmark pain of that burn. And also you will poop yourself but not care." - stuckwitharmor

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Mom's reaction immediately after an unmedicated birth vs. 4 days later tells a whole story

So many moms have had this flip-flop experience.

Photo credit: Canva

For many women, childbirth is the hardest and most empowering thing they'll ever do.

Childbirth is a life-altering experience no matter how you do it, and, thankfully, these days we have choices in how we give birth. Epidurals have given women the option to remove much of the pain of childbirth and modern medicine has made c-sections safer than they used to be. However, there are still many women who choose, for various reasons, to labor and give birth without any medications at all. Some even choose to do it more than once.

One mom perfectly captured the experience many women have had after giving birth unmedicated in a video captioned, "So hard but so worth it after." The first few seconds show the mom immediately after her the birth as the nurse is cleaning up the baby. "Ah, gosh dang," the mom says. "That was terrible." Shortly thereafter, a woman's voice off camera asks, "Should I do it or no?" and the mom laughs through a shaky smile and bluntly says, "No."

woman just after giving birth unmedicated13M views · 85K reactions | so hard but so worth it after😂🤣🥹 #unmedicatedbirth #unmedicatedlabor #midwife #birthstory #noepidural #epidural #birth | My Infertility FightMy Infertility Fight/Facebook.

But it's a whole different story a few days later, when she's seen all smiles holding her newborn. "Me 4 days later already planning on doing it again with my next baby," the text overlay reads.

How did she go from "Terrible, nope" to "Let's do that again!" in a matter of days? Having had three unmedicated births myself, that flip-flop is all too familiar. It's common to reach a place of "OMG WHY DID I DO THIS I WILL NEVER DO THIS AGAIN" sometime in the labor and birthing process as your body is pushed and stretched to its limit. There are moments you're convinced it's impossible and you're pretty sure you can't take another minute of it. How long it takes to get past that point and experience the rush that counteracts the pain varies person to person, but for many women (certainly not all), the overall experience is empowering and exhilarating enough that they end up wanting to do it all over again.

Contrary to popular belief, research indicates that women don't really forget the pain of labor. Like anything else, experiences vary from person to person, but speaking for myself, I still haven't forgotten the pain of childbirth two decades later. The pain part was as gnarly as people describe it, but I prepared for it and did what I could to manage it mentally and physically. Ultimately, I came away from my first birth feeling like a literal superhero with no limit to what I could do. It's hard to describe the power of that feeling, but it's what made me do it two more times.

The mom's video got people asking why on Earth someone would choose to put themselves through the pain of childbirth if they don't have to. "You don't get extra points for that," and "What are women trying to prove?" are common sentiments when someone talks about giving birth without meds, but moms make that choice for a variety of reasons and it's rarely to prove anything to anyone. Sometimes it's because medications come with some risk and they want to avoid those risks, even if they're small. Sometimes it's because women are curious about what the natural process of labor and birth feels like and they want to fully experience it. For some, it's similar to why people run marathons—to see what they and their bodies are capable of. Some have bad experiences with meds or simply don't enjoy the idea of feeling numb or not having control over their body.

Here are some moms' explanations for why they chose unmedicated childbirth:

"I was 100% natural both times because I wanted to fully experience it. The thought of an epidural petrified me more than child birth as well. Like 500x more scared. Wasn't out to prove anything to anyone. WAY before social media was a place to share these things. I just wanted full control."

"Honestly, I did mine naturally purely because as a woman I have always been curious about the feeling of labor and delivery. It’s just something I had to experience and honestly I really enjoyed my experience. I wouldn’t say I suffered either. The pain was manageable."

"I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. I was also very worried about the first few days of my baby’s life being with me having a spinal headache which I got from a spinal tap. I did unmedi[c]ated for a 35 hour birth with 12 hours on pitocin for my daughter. My son I labored 30 hours unmedicated then tired an epidural for a few hours since I was heading to a C-section. I hated the epidural—I felt so out of control with it. I so much preferred unmedicated."

""Sometimes it just goes too fast! With my first there was no time, and I hadn't planned on getting anything. I have high pain tolerance, so wasn't worried. The gal in the hospital room next to me had had an epidural. I was the 4th mom to room with her in a week. She was going on her second week flat on her back with a bad headache and other side effects. She was not allowed out of bed, and could not hold her baby without assistance. I decided if I had more children all births would be natural. A woman should be free to choose without people judging her one way or the other."

And that's really the crux of it—there's no need to judge someone's experience, no matter how they give birth. Every birth is different, every person has different preferences, and people shouldn't knock another's choice simply because it's not the one they would make. Instead, let's celebrate the fact that we do have choices that our ancestors didn't have and give one another the grace to share our birth experiences in all their glory without making assumptions or judgments about them.

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12 hilariously relatable comics about life as a new mom.

Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

Some good and not so good moments with babies.



Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

Illustrator Ingebritt ter Veld and Corinne de Vries, who works for Hippe-Birth Cards, a webshop for birth announcements, had babies shortly after one another.

In the series "#ThingsOnlyMomsKnow" Ingebritt and Corinne depict the reality of motherhood—with all the painful, funny, and loving moments not always talked about.

1. Pee-regnant.

Comic of a pregnant mom needing the toilet

Expectant moms plan for the bathroom.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

2. How (not) to sleep.

Pregnant woman sleeping on her stomach

Learning how to go with the flow.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

3. Cry baby.

Comic of parents watching home videos

Moms can be emotional... and dads too.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

4. The new things that scare you...

Comic of a woman on a flying carpet

Falling in love with the necessary conveniences.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

5. ...and the new things that give you the creeps.

Comic of man speaking to pregnant woman's belly

People have the ability to make normal situations feel weird.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

6. Being a new mom can get a little ... disgusting.

Comic of a woman holding a pregnancy test

The convenience of a pregnancy tests is also peeing on a stick.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

7. And every mom has experienced these postpartum horror stories.

Comic of a woman sneezing and wetting herself

Taking advantage of two bodily functions at one time.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

8. There are many, many memorable firsts.

Comic of a woman holding a pooping baby

Walking into a house with babies... yep.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

9. Getting to know your post-baby body is an adventure.

Comic of two women having tea while one lactates

Have a spare shirt ready to go.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

10. Pumping ain't for wimps.

Comic of a woman pumping her breasts

Looking behind the magic of a breast pump.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

11. You become very comfortable with spit-up. Very comfortable.

Comic of a baby spitting up on mom

No need to duck.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

12. Your body, mind, and most importantly, heart, will expand in ways you didn't know possible.

Comic of a woman's changing body

There are going to be changes.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

This story first appeared on Hippe Birth Cards and is reprinted here with permission.


This article originally appeared eight years ago.

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Incredible 6-week program turns expectant dads from bystanders into doula-level helpers

“I want men to understand: This isn’t just a woman thing."

Dads to Doulas

In 2017, Brad Edwards and his partner were expecting twins. By all accounts, it was a "normal" pregnancy, and Edwards assumed it would be smooth sailing when they got to the hospital. Tragically, and unexpectedly, both of his sons were delivered stillborn within a week of each other.

The statistics around black pregnancy in America are harrowing. Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than white women, while the infant mortality rate is more than twice as high. The reasons are vast, and include systemic racism and inequalities in the healthcare system. A lot of things can go wrong.

One thing that can make a difference is parent education. So when the couple got pregnant again a few years later, Edwards vowed to never feel "helpless" in the delivery room ever again.

“Through my experience losing my twins, I realized that there was a lot I didn't know, and there was a lot that I didn't take the time to educate myself on,” Edwards told St. Louis Magazine.

“So by the time another opportunity came, when I was preparing to have my baby girl, I had become familiar with what a doula is. One of my good friends is a doula. I said, ‘Alright, I need you to help me create a playbook. What do I need to look for? What should her levels be? What should I be looking for with the placenta?’ So it was just a few different things I wanted to be educated on to make sure that I could be not only knowledgeable but also an advocate for her, because I know that Black women die at much higher rates than any other race.”

Edwards' daughter Carielle was born in 2020, but not without a scare. Edwards' partner dealt with severe preeclampsia — a high blood pressure condition that can be fatal — and having a doula on hand to walk him through what to do proved to be a lifesaver.

That's when he decided that dads needed way more training before getting anywhere near the delivery room. Edwards worked with trained professionals to create a 6-week course called "Dads to Doulas."

A man practices doula techniques on a baby dollDads to Doulas

Doulas are helpers that assist mothers through the process, and immediately after, of childbirth. Unlike midwives, they don't perform any medical procedures, but they're knowledgable in comfort measures, advocacy, knowing what can go wrong, being prepared, and more. Having a doula on hand during birth can decrease the risk of complications or certain health problems in the baby, especially for high risk pregnancies.

In other words, doulas can save lives. But less than 6% of doulas are men, and there wasn't much of an existing framework to teach untrained men everything they need to know in such a short amount of time.

But now there is. The course, offered digitally and in-person in St. Louis, is free to the public and takes dads from zero to doula-level knowledge of childbirth so they can be an advocate for mom and baby the entire way through.

The first classes cover the basics, communication activities, and discuss home births and hospital births.

The more advanced classes work on partner advocacy, birth plans, physical comfort measures, and emergency safety.

They also cover postpartum depression in great detail, for moms and dads alike.

This education is an absolute game-changer for men who, let's face it, may not start off knowing very basic biological facts about how women's bodies work. Hiring a doula can be extremely expensive, so getting dad up to speed can be an important and even lifesaving investment.

“I want men to understand: This isn’t just a woman thing,” Edwards says. “This is about the family unit as a whole.”

Dads to Doulas isn't the only course of its kind.

A man with his daughters sits at a table listening to doula trainingDads to Doulas

More and more training programs like it are popping up all over the country. Dad Doula Bootcamp in Kansas City is another big one picking up steam.

We've come a long way when it comes to expecting dads. In the 50s and 60s, dads were actually invited to have a seat in the waiting room or even go to a nearby bar and wait for the baby to be born!

Now, more and more men want to get educated and get involved. Organizations like Dads to Doulas make that possible. And it's leading to better outcomes for babies and mothers.

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