I have a friend who just gave birth 17 days ago, and she was so kind as to send her pregnant friends an email with her experiences and tips based on that. She said it would be fine to share it here, so here is the anonymized version!

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-MAKE A BIRTH PLAN. Things may not go as you planned but it was GREAT having a billion copies and how DH handed it to everyone who walked into the door. No one offered me pain meds at any point (per my request), and we didn't spend the last twenty minutes of labor trying to relay our preferences about how our baby would be treated after birth. I read a book called Natural Hospital Birth and it helped me feel more comfy about the process. This book could help you even if you plan on having an epidural because you can specify, for instance, that you don't want to be offered an epidural when you walk in the door, etc.

-If you don't like your nurse get a new one. Worth every second of awkwardness I promise. If you don't know who to tell, ask for the house supervisor or the charge nurse. My labor nurse was AWESOME but the first one post-partum was crazy awkward.

-If you deliver vaginally, as you can imagine, you will be sore. Stitches hurt too. BUT if you will clench your rear end whenever you try to move it will make a WORLD of difference!!!! Seriously didn't hear this until 8pm on our second night and it was SO helpful! The nurse told me to do this while getting in/out of cars, bed, etc. it's unreal what a difference this makes!

-If you are in any way considering the no-epidural route, I want you to know it can totally be done (which you knew, but still). However, as my friend put it, you need to be "mentally tough." Pushing is hard. You kind of push as though you are constipated and really need to go. If you aren't sure if you are doing it right, ask your nurse to check. She'll put her fingers in the correct location and be able to tell you if you are putting force in the right place. Two things that helped me a lot--one was remembering to relax the rest of my body, the other was remembering that a long continuous push was the very best thing to do--think "long and strong." I'd guess that a longer slightly less forceful push is better than a really powerful short one. I was holding a lot of tension in my legs and needed to remember to let them relax. Someone told me EVERY contraction/push for the last hour and a half of pushing.

-REST AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. DH and I had both been at work until 8pm the day we went into labor. I first felt a contraction that was "different" around 11pm. Turns out I was in "active labor" at that point (skipped early labor entirely-well, feeling it anyway--and definitely found myself thinking "there's no WAY I'm not getting an epidural if this is the least painful part." Turns out we were past that stage, so it all worked out. but anyway) --I really wish we had gone to bed earlier the night before instead of staying up to finish a TV show or whatever. Ooops.

-Breastfeeding is not "easy" but it's totally do-able. It might feel odd/uncomfy at times. If it hurts, though, ask for help! For us, it turns out that LO was tongue tied. The amount of pain I was experiencing was NOT normal. I mention all of this not because I think you might have tongue-tied babies (statistics say you won't!) but I was thinking "don't be a wimp. Women have done this for eons. You gave birth without an epidural--you can DO this."--um yeah. Stupid me. We asked for help and turns out I wasn't being a wimp! Things weren't right! Also, remember there are many MANY "right ways" for breastfeeding. You will get all sorts of different opinions even at the hospital. Don't be afraid to try something new! And ask for a lactation consultant if you need it! That's what they are there for.

-Speaking of breastfeeding, there are LOTS of tools to help you out in the beginning and to make your nipples feel better. You can still be uncomfy even if things are going perfectly. There are various lotions and salves and whatever and these amazing things called hydrogels. I don't think I could have managed to continue breastfeeding without hydrogels, I had so much damage and bruising from her being tongue tied.

-Throughout the labor process I drank a lot of fluids. It got to the point that I needed to pee and couldn't (seriously, I tried for half an hour--in the shower, spraying warm water, putting peppermint oil in the toilet water--no dice). I ended up requesting a catheter. My doula suggested it--but the nurse NEVER would have. It made a huge difference for me. I hope y'all don't have this problem, but if you encounter this or any other roadblocks, don't hesitate to ask if there's something they can do. DH and I were so brain-dead at that point we would never have thought of this ourselves.

-Oh, and that "it takes a village" concept? Um, yeah. TRUE. Don't hesitate to ask for help, and if you have other support people available don't hesitate to use them! They want to be helpful and must be told what you want them to do. When I gave birth DH, my best friend, our doula and our nurse were all helping me (pushing on hips, holding up my legs, etc)--PLUS the doctor. So yeah, utilize them

-I was told to take everything that wasn't nailed down at the hospital. And we did. BUT I ended up with things we didn't need. The pads they give you right after labor are the size of TOMORROW. They are like 10 x 5 and then have an icepack on top. I took fifteen home. I needed none of them. I also took a bunch of the stretchy medical panty things they give you and didn't use any of those either because I was able to wear my larger-size underwear I'd purchased during pregnancy and that made me feel like more of a real person. On the flip side, when the nurse asked if there was anything else she could get me I sheepishly asked if we could have more diapers. She was happy to give them to us. So if you don't feel like you need to take it, don't. But if you want more, don't hesitate to ask!

-Bring snacks for your support people when you go to the hospital. This can make a HUGE difference. We had them in gallon ziplock bags and everything was individually wrapped (granola bars, fruit snacks, etc) And, it means you have snacks when labor is over. They let me have water, fruit juice and would've let me have chicken broth but that sounded repulsive. They would've let me have jello, too.

-You will want: shoes for the shower (our post-partum room was bigger but because of that we had to go to the "patient shower" in the hall), nice toiletries to use, a multi-outlet thing/extension cord if you're technology folks, a fun pillow case (if you think you'd enjoy that--I made a pink and white polka dot one and it was nice to have something of "mine" in the space) and, if you have sensitive skin, you might want to consider getting a gownie. http://www.gownies.com/ I got one as a gift and it was AWESOME! All cotton, way cuter than the hospital gowns (anything to feel human is a good thing) and is designed with new moms in mind. Oh, and you may want some white noise to drown out the noises in the hall, from other rooms, from the self-adjusting bed, etc.I was also glad we brought our zyrtec because they didn't have it at the hospital. Their policy is that if they don't know you have it they can't make you register it, get it okayed, etc. I wouldn't take your own pain meds, because they need to know that stuff, but the allergy meds were okay. My friend made me a bag with ibuprofen, stool softener, tucks pads and a water squeeze bottle. TOTALLY helpful. They will give you these at the hospital, too, but in the end I'm glad to have one of everything in our upstairs and downstairs bathrooms here at home.

-All of your coping items may or may not be used. Just FYI. We used none of ours. NONE. Don't feel bad if this happens to you. It's totally okay.

-Don't hesitate to talk frankly to your post-partum nurse about ways to make all of the checks and meds and everything else easier on you. For me, this meant that one of the really great nurses I had was able to say--okay, well I need to check your vitals at 4 and give you the ibuprofen at 445, but I have a half an hour flexibility on the ibuprofen, so how about I come at 430 and do both instead of coming in twice? I also told her she did not need to knock--if she needed to just peek in, or come in for whatever reason, she could just come in. The knocks on the door at all hours got old REAL quick.

-You will still have (much milder) contractions after you deliver. This is so your placenta can come out. Also, when you breastfeed, you may have cramps. They feel like pretty intense menstrual cramps. And nature is trying to help your uterus shrink. It isn't pleasant, but it's also kind of cool that feeding your baby = helping mom heal.

-I chose to have my placenta encapsulated. I am REALLY glad I did! If you want to know more about this let me know.

-When in labor, make ANY noise you need to. Moan, groan, yell, say "owowowowowow" whatever you need. Also, they will tell you to make low sounds instead of yelling sounds --they aren't kidding about this--because your throat will be sore the next day from any higher pitched noises. I had someone bring cough drops. I was very proud of myself that the worst word I said was "crap." My mom reminded me that the baby hears everything you say. But, clearly they don't know English yet, so...yeah.

-Hospital food isn't awesome. Except breakfast is pretty decent! We were able to order off of a special menu because we were "well patients"--ask about that if you feel so inclined! They also had NO problem with people bringing in food--so we had Jersey Mike's for dinner and food from our favorite breakfast bagel place (Bruegger's) the next morning.

-I got to the point that asking for water was a huge effort. We had a camelbak bottle which was awesome. First I told DH to ask if I wanted it instead of making me ask. Then I told him to stop asking if I wanted it and just hold it to my mouth because it was too much effort to ask. And it WAS.

-two other helpful things--I had them putting a warm blanket on my lower back to help with the crazy hip pain (seriously someone pushed on my hips every EVERY EVERY contraction because it was the only thing that helped. sorry if I'm repeating myself, I don't want to re-read to see!), and cool washrags to help because I felt like I was burning up. They ended up with little containers of icewater and would rotate the rags on my head, neck and chest, exchanging them for cool ones from the ice bath.

-once you get home, get as much sleep as you can! Don't accept visitors, just helpers. And if your kiddo cluster feeds at night, talk to your pediatrician or whatever--they told us to wake her and feed her every two hours during the day so that we could flip her days and nights. And do something every day to make you feel like a person--for me, it's showering. And if I go out in public I put on mascara. Even if I haven't actually washed my hair in two days Maybe it's putting on real clothes or wearing shoes or cooking breakfast. But anyway, make time for it somehow. You'll be glad you did. Especially because you can start to feel a little like a feeding machine. Oh and LO has responded very well to white noise at home. We just bought a sleep sheep from babies r us and a tiny $10 homedics one from target and keep them in different areas of the house, and they HELP.

One last thing--if your husband has failed to pack his hospital back despite you nagging him for at least two weeks, going into labor is a GREAT way to get him to pack it.