I'm not sure. I had a natural home birth. It wasn't too bad. Contractions felt like food poisoning in waves. I didn't want to speak during them, but in between was okay and coming off the peaks were fine. I had lots of help, so it wasn't bad. I would do it again. It all stops when the baby comes out. Then it's just in time for you to breastfeed and start the cramps for your uterus to shrink back down. Fun. Ever workout really heavy after a break? Yep, that's your body. It's a marathon you ran under water getting gulps of breath that are breaks, after, you try to recover but then you have this precious thing that needs you in a good way but you can't stand the cries. You hold it and nurse it and love it but sometimes it's just unhappy and your ears are like screeching. You can't sleep well. You have to check on it every 10 min to see if there's breathing. Ah, I see the chest go down. Relief. Then you start an internal timer for the next 10. Your dread almost let's your mind run wild. What about SIDS? I wonder how many baby die from SIDS. What if my baby dies from SIDS. You think, "shit, when's the last time I checked on the baby"? 5 min? 20min? You really don't know because time is not the time you remember when you were just pregnant. In your hazy fog and paranoia you don't know the exact time, you just know it's been entirely too long since you have heard from your baby. You go to take a peak but from being extremely nervous knock over something and it wakes the baby and there goes the ears. You hold it close to nurse it and look at it's tiny fingers and little feet. You convince yourself it's all worth it.

That's first time mom parenthood for me.