the long and short about labour.

having been rostered onto 2 long days worth of labour ward duties and a morning of c-sections, labour is seriously under-estimated. All the movies and drama series portray labour as something that is relatively short and always commencing with the exxagerated POPPING of the waters. On screen, the baby always comes out perfect and clean and the mother looking so neat and happy.

Well folks, in real life, you get a blue baby with a crunched up face covered in white slime. Midwives have to clean your baby before they look presentable to you. You would have had on average 5 hours of painful and regular contractions prior to the baby even being out of you. This is usually associated with a change of mood, hair getting dishevelled and lots of swearing and screaming before the pain medications are administered.

All you people opting to have caesarean sections for convenience, fear of a long and painful labour process or simply the fashion of the time.. are also WRONG. You always get a big scar, you have more blood loss, recovery takes longer. It's a safe and life-saving alternative but people should stop saying they WANT caesars.

At least it doesn't (thankfully) take away any of the joy and tears that comes rolling down your faces when you see your baby for the first time.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that labour is just the beginning of a long road of parenting. It's not pretty and it's not glamourous. You have to do it only because you want to.

Yes.... and i will save the rant about midwives for another day.