How much pain will I feel during childbirth?
Pain in childbirth is very hard to define. Pain in general is very hard to define. Different people have different pain thresholds. You can have a patient who claims to be the strongest person and have the highest threshold and she presents to labour and delivery begging for an epidural and she's only one centimetre, and a patient who asks for an epidural when she's halfway through her pregnancy because doesn't want to experience any pain and she shows up to the hospital and she's eight centimetres dilated. So a lot of factors come into play with respect to pain. It's very hard to define what pain you experience. It is true to say that most people are surprised at how uncomfortable it is because it's a pain that you can't localize. If you have a muscle cramp you massage your muscle. If you slam your finger in the door you shake it off and eventually the pain goes away. But with a uterine contraction -- and it's often compare to a kidney stone, if anyone experienced a kidney stone -- it's a pain that somewhere inside you that any position you put yourself in, it is hard to find a comfortable position during childbirth.
