To feel I've been sold lies on natural birth when reality is v different

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Hi All, 37 weeks pregnant and very excited about the birth until last week. Final scan revealed baby is already big...could be 9lb at 40 weeks and he's in 75th percentile so definitely at larger end. I'm 5'4", size 10 usually so not particularly large.

Done hypnobirthing, NCT classes and been insistent on natural birth with no pain relief - I've been very gung ho and complacent and now reality is kicking in - I'm expecting a large baby so tears and cuts may be more likely. Feel like I've been sold lies about the ease of having unassisted natural birth when the practical reality is different - all my friends who wanted natural births ended having emergency c sections and assisted painful deliveries.

Have I been sold some nonsense to believe that I can be superwoman and have an easy pain free natural delivery because my mind will overcome any fear? What's the reality of this? Feeling like I've been arrogant to think I could be different from most women out there and have this big baby easily. I've been dutifully doing all the perineal massage / vaginal stretching wondering what the point is when I'll be trying to push a huge baby through a tiny gap.

Fed up!

I don't think that going natural means you will necessarily :

1. be pain free
2. have no complications Hypnobirthing, self-hypnosis and all prep for natural birth should only help you to relax, accept whatever is coming and have the best possible attitude (which is, get rid of fear ). It can be misleading if you understand by this that the birth itself will be easy, as there is no way to know in advance! But the difference can be your outlook, your experience, how fully you participate ( instead of resisting or climbing up the walls because you freak out ). Speaking out of experience here, my second was born quickly with self-hypnosis as opposed as my first ( slowly, epidural, me freaking out, stuck baby, episiotomy etc ....) All that self-hypnosis did was make me confident and give me tools to ride the wave and feel like I was taking part ..... You will be fine, whichever way the baby comes out, is what you should be concentrating on :)

Further to Blowing's point, I had a great recovery from a C section. Just 1 night in hospital, up and about before many women with more traumatic natural births.

No birth is easy but perfectly normal and doable so long as mum and baby are healthy.

My 2nd was over 9lb, born suddenly at home, no opportunity for pain relief. It hurt a lot. But no lasting damage!

I was enduced 2 weeks early because of DD's size, she was 10lbs 8oz when she was born. My labour was quick (3hours) so there was no time for any pain relief other than gas and air which didn't really do much for me. Yes childbirth hurts but our bodies are designed to give birth. My midwife basically said this baby is coming now so suck it up and let's get on with it! I had a 2nd degree tear because baby had shoulder dystocia and it hurt but I healed and I am fine now. My SIL had a C-section a week later and she was much less mobile than me in the early days.
Everyone is different, you just need to listen to your body and remember that the most important thing is yours and your baby's health. Good luck.

In anything you do, the power of the mind should never be underestimated. No it's not a given that you can get what you want by thinking/hoping for it but it's a start and a move in the right direction

This is right, which is why, when I was told I had a wonderful 1st labour, I was lucky, I must have amazing birth hips by the head MW. I told her - that I am not just a pair of hips and that emotionally and mentally, the pain was too much, to be denied an epidural was wrong.
I had by all accounts an amazing short, relatively unscathed 1st labour.
I was however deeply upset after the birth, I struggled to bond with DD, I was terrified of having liquids as I was verging on incapable of bearing the pain on the loo after. I couldn't even wash myself and community MW had to order me too.

I was in a mess. So second time round I had an ELC and it was by far the calmer, most civilized way to give birth. I was able to come at motherhood second time round on a full nights sleep, and psychically - (ironically) fine in spite of the operation. The slight pain of the wound was in no way comparable to the tiny tear I had 1st time round, the tiny tear impacted my day to day life massively.

I was thus in a far better position to establish BF and three years on, we stopped literally last week. I was calmer, happier, and loved the ELC.

Oh and however lovely and straightforward a birth might be, it'll hurt - during and for some time after. Tearing and stitching are a reality with most vaginal births. It's not always as bad as it sounds!

Women had home births without pain relief for years - yes, and often died in childbirth. While in every other area people agree that medical advances are a good thing, for some reason when birth is concerned, they become some kind of sinister, unnneccessary plot of doctors and doing it like in the dark ages is the best.
Fine if you don't need any assistance, but science is not inherently evil.

to be honest growth scans are nearly always wrong. I know so many who were told their babies would be huge and they have been tiny to average. I was told in labour mine would only be average sized and both were huge. I had both naturally, it is perfectly possible. don't panic.

I had a great recovery from a C section. Just 1 night in hospital, up and about before many women with more traumatic natural births

It took me two nights to get up and about. I was bent over a bit, and shuffling slowly. But I could sit with ease and go to the loo, and was in a far better position than 1st labour.

In my NCT group, inspite of the operation I was the one who came out the best. One had life threatening condition after the birth and needed hospital visits for months after, another had severe damage below and was also in and out of hospital for months, another had bad tearing again and loads of stitches.

*I also strongly believe the success of the birth is down to pure luck. Nothing more and nothing less.

There really is very little YOU can do to make it better or worse.*

I think this is true in terms of the mechanics of birth - position of baby, size of baby relative to mother, head circumference, mother's health issues etc etc

but I do believe it is possible to affect how you FEEL about your birth. obviously this also depends on having good support from HCPs and your birth partner, but also preparing (as much as you can) for the unknown and unexpected. How this happens will be different for different women - it could be hypnobirthing, NCT, deciding beforehand to push for an epidural, water birth or whatever. For me, going into my labour, I worked really hard on staying calm, breathing techniques and having the most positive attitude I could muster.
And I am sure this has helped me to not look back at the labour with any negativity - because I sure as hell couldn't do anyting about the back to back baby (with a 95th centile head) who turned halfway round, tried to come out in a transverse presentation, got utterly stuck and had to be pushed back up in order to be delivered by EMCS.

You'll be fine! Just go with the flow so to speak. My son was 8lb 14oz and I had him naturally. Worst part was that he was back to back which caused our issues. Rest of it was too late to think about. Just enjoy the end product.

The most important factor in whether a drug free natural birth is for you is your intrinsic tolerance of pain.

If you are the kind of person who feels pain strongly (be it period pain, splinter in finger, paper cut or anything else) then for the love of god don't go there.

If you are the kind of person who would describe themselves as tough as nails and basically insensitive to pain then go for it.

Your reaction to pain is primarily down to your genetics and the effect they have on your pain receptor pathways. There is a whole spectrum of variation from people who cannot feel pain at all to people who are in agony from every bump and knock.

Guess which will fair better in child birth?

my sil and dsis both wanted natural births but had to have cs due to complications

they were both up within 24 hours with very little pain after

so keep an open mind what will be will be

In anything you do, the power of the mind should never be underestimated. No it's not a given that you can get what you want by thinking/hoping for it but it's a start and a move in the right direction.

Damn - if only I'd thought a bit harder DS1 wouldn't have been an undiagnosed breach (discovered after 7 hours in labour).

OP - I had an emergency section with DS1 (emergency as in unplanned rather than panic) recovered well and went on to have DS2 as a VBAC (vaginal birth after CS). You can't predict what will happen but keeping all your options open actually makes it easier. If you trust yourself to make the best choice you can when faced by the reality of your situation then that is fine. Never, go back after and second guess your decision later when you are not in labour. Believe that you will make the best decisions you can under the circumstances and that there is no right or wrong way for you to give birth.

BTW DS1 is now 12 and DS2 is 8 and you can't tell which one was the CS and which was the VB nor how much pain relief I had whilst I was in labour with each of them.

I just had my son last weekend. He was 8lb and 11 oz. I am slightly shorter than you, and currently size 10 - 12. i had originally wanted to give birth in a birth centre, but had to be induced as I was 2 weeks overdue. As a result, i had to be in the labour ward. I was hyper stimulated by the propase and within a few hours I was in labour. They had to take the propase out as I had 8 contractions in 10 minutes. I was in labour for 24 hours and ended up caving in and having an epidural, something I had always said I would not do. I

There was a woman in my ward who had just had her 4th child. She's had easy deliveries with babies 1, 2 and 3, without pain relief, and so had expected an easy one with 4. She ended up having an emergency c-section.

Basically, every labour is different and you have to be prepared to be flexible when it comes to your birth plan. Just accept that something's are out of your control and take every moment as it comes.

The most important factor in whether a drug free natural birth is for you is your intrinsic tolerance of pain.

It's really not. It's to do with the presentation of the baby on the day, coupled with your own physiology (pelvic shape etc.) being fit and healthy and having the right mental attitude and not being afraid of pain are great things, but the amount of pain you experience varies massively with foetal position.
If the baby doesn't have to rotate to reach a front/back position and can descend immediately you'll have a shorter labour and likely a straightforward one. If the baby has to rotate almost 360 you're in for a longer first stage. The position of the head 'stargazing' etc, the shape of the pelvic outlet, back to back presentation etc - these all affect pain levels. That's before you factor in complications such as getting stuck due to shoulder dystocia.
It's very easy after a straightforward birth to attribute it to pain tolerance, but other factors influence it much more.

Blowing my experience exactly - textbook, easy and fast birth. That left me traumatised and affected our bonding.

And all the preparation and positive thinking did not actually help. I'm not saying you should go in terrified, of course. But there's just so much of the 'oh, if you prepare and relax, it won't hurt a bit, you will just breathe baby out!' . So when it does in fact hurt and no visualising of clouds helps, it feels like you're a failure.

I agree skipton

Keep an open mind, all mine were very different.

In contrary to others my CS was painful afterwards, long recovery. I had one child born at home with no pain relief. Seriously I have had worse periods. I remember remarking to the midwife that " I really don't want another CS" and her laughing and replying well unless I push her back you won't need one! She was out, and I had no idea!

Good luck.

I had the anaesthetic wear off in my Cs ... That was fun.

ice excellent point and I think NCT and HP really need to ask mothers to be to question themselves, what do they need, are they awful when it comes to pain, do they need to know whats going on, what would they rather have if something goes wrong.

G500 I had pragmatic view once I was pregnant, there was no way out!
I was nervous, did all the preparation I could. Once the labour started - pre labour, I actually felt tremendously calm and as other pP have said I was a by stander really for the body to do its job. I couldn't have been more calm, and positive.

It didnt help AT ALL pain is pain is pain.

There are suggestions you can try and get baby to lie with its back facing out anterior position. I read quite a bit re how to encourage this so no sitting on the sofa with feet up, I sat only in a hard backed dining chair and went on all fours to scrub the kitchen floor every day. That was the easy birth, when I had another I though oh it was easy last time but sat with feet up etc and ended up with a back to back. That was long winded and Mach more painful. No idea if it really work though!

Head we happened to be re doing house at the time, i spent a good part of each day on my knees scrubbing our pine floor to get rid of paint splashes, I had no idea at that time she was back to back, it did SOD all. I had been extremely active before the birth and was active during.

I was very much like you, I wanted a natural birth, I did all the hypno birthing etc and was feeling pretty prepared for the whole thing. All set up with a pool at home. That was until my DD was late, then found to be breech at 41 weeks, then back to back once turned. I waited as long as I felt comfortable, but was pressured into induction at 42 weeks - no home birth for me.

It was not all that I'd hoped for, no calm home environment - instead I had a ward with a sheet between me and some random people (including visitors) whilst I laboured. However the hypnobirthing still helped me massively, I was happy with breathing techniques and a tens machine for hours. Unfortunately labour didn't progress as I'd hoped and after rather a long period of no progression (14hrs in total at 6cm with contractions every 2 mins!) I had an epidural. It was amazing! It allowed me to rest - I badly needed rest and gave me time to relax and let me cervix dilate. I narrowly avoided a c-section, which I think would have been inevitable without the epidural and ended up giving birth vaginally with an episiotomy.

My point is that it wasn't at all what I wanted or expected, but labour is a challenge and you can't plan it as unfortunately your baby may have different plans to you. Have an ideal scenario but just go with the flow on the day. Trust me at the end of it once you have your baby safely in your arms none of the rest matters.

I'm not at all concerned about doing it again, I'd love to try for the home birth this time, but I'm happy knowing that the hospital with an epidural is 10 mins away should I need it and then it really is just pressure you feel - you can even have a nap!

I'm another small framed person (5'2", size 8) and I had a 9lb baby with just gas & air. I did hypnobirthing (no classes, just an app) and feel it definitely helped. That and staying upright and mobile during labour and delivering by kneeling upright - the gravity helped!

As others have said, you just don't know how things are going to work out for you. My first baby I'd been in labour forever and not dilating, after 37 hours I was at 4cms!! Ended up having an EMCS. They knew baby 2 was big and they didn't really think I'd get the vaginal birth I wanted, but I did, all 9lbs of her. I think your mindset plays a huge part it in all. Just try to go in with an open attitude.

But most importantly, don't focus too much on the birth. I was devastated after the section on my first, I really felt like I'd failed (doesn't help when they put "failure to progress" on your chart!) and it took me a while to come to terms with that. In reality, the most important thing is that your baby comes out safely and that you're both ok. Wishing you the very best of luck - you'll be holding your baby in a matter of weeks