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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

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"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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Parenting

People are losing it at this millennial teaching her boomer mom about 'gentle parenting'

Hilarity ensues.

@thedailytay/TikTok

“I don’t even know my plan! Do you know your plan?!”

There are a lot of modern ideas that make sense to those of us who have come of age with them, but it's a really interesting exercise to try to view those same ideas from the perspective of the older generations. It can make things seem pretty absurd. For example:

Gentle parenting has been the anxious millennial antidote to the trauma caused by their boomer parent’s not-so-gentle approach to raising kids. This new wave of parents have become determined to not let history repeat itself, to usher in a kinder, more emotionally secure, more confident generation of humans.

And while that intention is certainly admirable, perhaps we millennials, with all our self-deprecating humor, can also laugh at ourselves a bit with just how gentle we strive to be.

gentle parenting, parenting, parenting advice, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, parenting hacks A grown woman and her motherImage via Canva

A fun, tongue-in-cheek and instantly viral video created by 37-year-old mom of two Taylor Wolfe can help with that.

The clip, which racked up 5.8 million views in less than 24 hours, shows Taylor trying to teach her boomer mother Sandy Wolfe all the ins-and-outs of gentle parenting so that she may use these more compassionate tactics on her grandkids.

@thedailytay

GENTLE HANDS. 🙃🫶🏻🤭❤️ #fyp #millennialsoftiktok #momsoftiktok #gentleparenting #parentsoftiktok #foryoupag #comedyvideo


Let’s just say, many found her failed attempt completely relatable, not to mention hilarious.

Sandy’s well intentioned “Be careful!” to her granddaughter gets met with Taylor saying, “We don’t say ‘Be careful!’ anymore. Instead say, ‘What’s your plan here?’”

“I don’t even know my plan! Do you know your plan?!” Sandy retorts.

Cut to: Sandy says “Stop. Don’t hit your sister.” Suddenly Taylor pops up from behind a corner to instruct: “Don’t say, ‘Stop,’ say, ‘Gentle.’”

“‘Gentle’…what?” asks a confused Sandy.

“‘Gentle hands,’” quips Taylor, adding. “‘Gentle’ everything.”

gentle parenting, parenting advice, parenting, parenting hacks, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, mothers, daughters An adult woman and her older motherImage via Canva

Sandy can’t even catch a break when she says “I’m so proud of you.” because, as Taylor explains, “you’re not supposed to tell kids you’re proud of them anymore. That’s putting the focus on you.”

Then a classic comedy of errors ensues as Taylor advises Sandy to say “you should be so proud” and Sandy replies “I AM so proud!”

Viewers could help but laugh at their own perhaps overzealous attempts to bring gentle parenting into their life.

“I tried to gentle parent this morning but it turned into ‘OMG GET YOUR FORKING SHOES ON,”” one person wrote, while another added, “I always started with the Mary Poppins approach but sometimes you need to elevate to Judge Judy.”

Others felt like this perfectly depicted how gentle parenting sometimes misses the mark.

“I’m feeling anxious after observing gentle parenting,” one person wrote.

Another simply said, “I stand with grandma.”

This isn’t the first time Taylor and Sandy have given us a good chuckle comparing their different parenting styles. Here’s another funny video from August of 2023 where Taylor is flabbergasted to hear how her mother managed without Google:

Listen, gentle parenting is great for providing parents more mindful, less reactive responses to their kids, which can do wonders for everybody. But there’s also something to be said for not getting so wound up in the minutia of every parent-child interaction, thinking anything and everything could be threatening to a child’s development. As with anything, balance—and a sense of humor—is always key.

Follow along on more of Taylor’s fun and relatable content on TikTok.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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How humanitarian parole programs help migrant families in crisis

Through her work as a humanitarian parole sponsor, Sandra McAnany has helped uplift more than a dozen Latin American migrants and changed lives in the process.

Sandra visiting E’s family in Georgia (2023)

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Sandra McAnany isn’t one to sit on the sidelines. A 58-year-old grandmother from Wisconsin, McAnany spends her days teaching soft skills classes to adults and spending time with her family. Outside the classroom, however, she’s taken on a role that’s helping people in a big way: serving as a humanitarian parole sponsor and personally taking on the financial responsibility of supporting families fleeing from persecution, violence, and instability.

Since 2023, McAnany has welcomed 17 migrants—11 adults and six children through the CHNV humanitarian parole program, which allows individuals and families from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to live and work temporarily in the United States with the support of an approved sponsor.

“Everyone has their own views and perspectives, but every person I sponsored is thriving and doing well here,” McAnany said.

McAnany didn’t know any of the parolees before sponsoring them, but she had a commitment to helping families from Venezuela specifically, hoping to reunite them with their families who were already living in the United States. After “praying a lot along the way” and communicating with the applicants through WhatsApp, she decided to apply as a sponsor and help them settle into the United States.

“I have a bedroom and a bathroom in my basement,” McAnany says. “My door is open and will always be open for any of the people I sponsored, if they ever have a need for housing.”

Sandra’s granddaughter, E’s daughter, and another friend at an indoor park (July 2025)

At the time, McAnany decided to volunteer as a sponsor to make friends and help other people through hardship. Now, her mission has grown: Seeing how humanitarian parole programs have changed her parole beneficiaries’ lives—as well as her own—for the better.

Humanitarian parole: A long history

Humanitarian parole programs are nothing new. Since 1952, both Democratic and Republican administrations have used humanitarian parole to provide a safer, lawful pathway for noncitizens to enter and live temporarily in the United States. In recent years, through different programs, people from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti, and other countries have been able to come to the U.S. to escape urgent crises in their own countries, such as political instability or war.

Coming to the United States through humanitarian parole is no easy feat. The process has its own strict criteria and involves extensive applications and vetting for both beneficiaries and their sponsors. Parolees don’t need to qualify for any other immigration benefit like asylum, but they need to meet the standard for humanitarian parole and successfully pass vetting requirements.

According to Refugees International, 532,000 people have been granted parole through the CHNV program.

A life-changing experience

From the moment she met her first parole beneficiaries at the airport—two families —McAnany already knew it would be a life-changing experience. “It immediately felt like family, like we were lifelong friends,” she said. But she could also sense that it was a culture shock for the parolees. On the way home from the airport, McAnany pulled into a nearby McDonald's and encouraged them to order dinner. Hearing the word “Big Mac,” the families smiled in recognition.

Despite the culture shock, McAnany’s parole beneficiaries had to adapt quickly to life in the United States. Once they were settled, McAnany worked “nonstop” to help the families acclimate to their new lives, answering questions about school and vaccinations while also helping them create resumes, search for jobs, and find English classes online.

It was through this process that McAnany realized just how resilient people could be, and was amazed “not only how hard it was for individuals to leave their loved ones behind, but the amount of work they did to come to the country and remain here.” McAnany also realized how fortunate she was to have her own family living nearby. “I can’t imagine any one of us leaving a country and being apart for an unknown length of time,” she said.

Eventually, and as circumstances changed—one of the parolees found a new job in another city, for example, and was able to move out. But no matter the length of time they spent with each other, McAnany says that with every parolee they formed a bond built for life. One woman, who she refers to as ‘E,’ has even become “like an adopted daughter.” McAnany has traveled to Georgia, where E now lives, three times to visit her.

Uncertain ground: What’s next for humanitarian parole programs

Despite being a critical part of immigration policy in the United States for the last 73 years, humanitarian parole programs are under threat. Immigrant justice nonprofits Justice Action Center and Human Rights First are currently suing the federal government to protect humanitarian parole programs and allow parole beneficiaries to remain in the country for the duration of their parole. McAnany is a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

One of the ladies Sandra sponsored from Venezuela and her partner during Sandra’s first visit to meet her (December 2023)

Participating in the lawsuit has only further bolstered McAnany’s belief in and support for humanitarian parole programs. She hopes the lawsuit will be successful, she says, so that parole beneficiaries and their families can finally have some stability.

“We don’t know what the future is,” she says, “but I want to be optimistic and hopeful that every person I sponsored will be able to stay here safely in the U.S. and continue to thrive.”

This article is part of Upworthy’s “The Threads Between U.S.” series that highlights what we have in common thanks to the generous support from the Levi Strauss Foundation, whose grantmaking is committed to creating a culture of belonging.


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Black mom has perfect response to people asking why her baby is white with blonde hair and blue eyes

You can't argue with that logic.

via Vidal Balielo Jr./Pexels

A newborn baby sleeping.

Popular TikToker Alex McCurry and her husband, Rob, were shocked when they had their third child, affectionately known as Pudge Pudge, because she has blonde hair and blue eyes. Their first two children look like a combination of Alex, who is Black, and Rob, who is white, but Pudge Pudge has the skin tone of someone born to two white parents.

Pudge Pudge was conceived through IVF, so her mother thought that there was a mistake in the lab and she was implanted with an embryo made from a white woman’s egg. "We decided to do the DNA test because she was so white," Alex joked to the Truly Show. However, when the results came back, Pudge Pudge was definitely Alex and Rob’s baby.

Alex has had some very uncomfortable experiences with people who don’t understand or believe that she is Pudge Pudge’s mother. “This lady complimented me on being such a great nanny, and I was like, ‘I'm her mom,’" Alex told People. Another time, she and a friend were followed in a grocery store because someone thought she had kidnapped her baby. “At first, my reaction was like, 'Why would somebody steal a baby? Like, do you know how stressful it is to have kids?'” she jokes.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

In 2020, while she was bored during COVID, Alex created a TikTok channel where she shared her unique family and story, and, although she does get some love on the platform for her beautiful family, she’s also the target of racists. She created her page to remind people that racism still exists even though there’s no need for it. "I should be able to hang out with my child, the way I want to,” she told the Truly Show.

After three years of being forced to explain that she is Pudge Pudge’s mother, Alex has found a way to tell other people about her unique family. “Just a reminder, y'all, genetics do whatever they wanna do, okay? I don't know why my child has blond hair and blue eyes. I don't know why my other two children don't have blond hair and blue eyes. I don't know. I didn't study that much biology,” she admits.

“But what I do know is that these are all biologically my babies. I do know that I love them,” Alex continues. “And I do know that I'm gonna love and educate and teach my children to be the best people that they can be. And that is really all that matters.”

@4thfreshestmccurry2

Replying to @user6631055707588 She is my baby. she is biologically my child. all of my kids are. my husband is white and that's why they're so light.ets move on to suggestions about how to tame this wild baby #pudgepudge #familiesdonthavetolooklikeyouexpect #theyjusthavetoloveeachother

How can a Black woman have a baby that looks white?

There are hundreds of different strands of DNA that work together to determine someone's skin color. A white man and a Black woman both carry gene variants for a lighter skin tone, and if the baby inherits both variants, the baby can appear to be white-looking. Furthermore, in some cases, if the Black parents have lighter-skinned ancestors, those can resurface in their children generations later, something that was a prevalent danger and fear for many white-looking Black individuals who chose to "pass" in the early 20th century America.

Ultimately, Alex has learned that when she is confronted by people who don’t understand her family, it’s not her job to share a lesson about biology, but one about love. “Don't be all asking me those kinds of questions,” she concludes her video. “I don't have time for it anymore. What I do have time for is to remind you that families don't have to come the way that you expect. They just have to love each other.”

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