To want to be able to share my childbirth anxieties without being dismissed/told off?

[AngeloMysterioso]

I’m 26 wks pg with my first and have recently been getting quite freaked out about the possibility something going horrifically wrong with my baby. Now admittedly this is largely my own fault- I have actively sought out all the awful traumatic labour stories, birth injury stories, premature stories, telling myself that if I know what the worst case scenarios are I’ll feel more ready to potentially face them myself. Well, that’s massively backfired because now I lie awake at night worrying endlessly about what will happen if I go into labour tomorrow, if I have complications and my baby ends up in NICU or dying, if I have to have an instrumental birth and end up torn from front to back and left incontinent for the rest of my days, if I’m mentally scarred from a horrifically long and painful labour... you get the picture.

I was telling my DM about my fears about childbirth this evening, and she seemed almost angry with me for having the audacity to be worried! Among her pearls of wisdom were (and these are direct quotes):

“The hospital will NOT let you suffer”
How many stories have I read on here where women have been allowed to suffer? Fucking hundreds!

“I did it, so can you.”
She had one late term stillbirth, one natural birth with a tiny 35 week premie (DB) and one EMCS (me). Hardly a shining example of smooth pregnancy/childbirth experiences there.

“If you want an epidural and have a needle stuck into your back, good luck with that!!”
Yep, apparently if I have an epidural my baby will come out stoned or something...

“I can’t understand women who pour out all their bad experiences that serve no purpose but scare the life out of so many first time pregnant women, who should be enjoying every minute!!!”
This is from the woman who, literally within minutes of being told I was pregnant, started retelling the story to my PILs about her stillbirth...

“Enjoy this experience Angelo, think of all the women who can’t have babies, absorb the wonder of your changing body, and breathe a sigh of relief when it all pops back into place”
It’s hard to “absorb the wonder of my changing body” with random abdominal and sciatic pains, a right thigh that keeps going numb and bloody awful constipation... and she’s still blaming me for the layer of fat she hasn’t been able to shift from the EMCS she had with me in 1985!

And of course, the classic...
“The minute you have that baby in your arms, everything is forgotten!!”
Tell that to the woman who suffer with PND/PTSD after traumatic birth experiences...

I don’t have any friends who’ve had children who I really feel close enough to to share my anxieties with so I was hoping that I’d be able to talk to her about them openly, but now I feel even worse than I did before... I get that in her way she is trying to be supportive, but I just think I’d feel better if she would just admit that my worries aren’t totally irrational at the very least? As it is, she just tells me to STOP WORRYING, and now I feel like I’m failing at pregnancy by not becoming some blossoming Mother Earth type and selfishly not considering how lucky I am to be pregnant in the first place...

I have absolute sympathy for my mum. I just wish she wouldn’t expect me to think of her as a leading authority on how to have babies.
I am trying to change my mindset, the problem is that the negative stuff seems to be a lot more forthcoming than the positive! But I did find a thread in classics full of funny birth stories which I have been looking at every now and then which has made me feel a bit better.

I did hypnobirthing for both my kids
It was te best to calm a worries mind

Also: wtf would you actively look for horrible birth stories ?!?!

And stop talking to your mum about it. She is clearly not the right person for you to talk to rn

Can you seek counselling for your anxiety regarding giving birth? CBT is effective for anxiety. You can ask your GP, or look privately if you have the funds.

If it helps to provide balance, I have had four very straightforward, full term births. The last three were without any intervention whatsoever, and minimal or no pain relief. I really enjoy giving birth. All my children are healthy, and I have no adverse health consequences from giving birth.

Hi

I think part of the problem i have experienced is that people are not generally experts at this kind of thing and well meaningly say things that are really irritating and not helpful. Probably we have done the same.
When i was having a high risk pregnancy all my friends and family would talk about is the positives. I really needed some space to talk about and acknowledge worst case scenarios and i found some of the listening helplines around pregnancy issues the best. They weren't judgy, they were calm, acknowledged that things could go wrong and we talked about how i would deal with that. Just doing that helped a lot with making my worries seem more proportional rather than overwhelming.
I agree hypno birthing would also be useful.
The thing i found most helpful is i took each day at a time. Which is the opposite of how i normally act. But i spent each day thinking how do i make this the nicest day with my bump that i can do. When ever i got overwhelmed with what could happen and go wrong i went back to focus on what i could do that day.

Also: wtf would you actively look for horrible birth stories ?!?!

As I said in my OP, my logic was that if I knew going in what the worst that can happen was, I would be more ready to possibly face it myself.

I didn’t say it made sense...

Have you considered speaking to a therapist yourself? It sounds as though your mother's experiences, if shared with you from an early age, may well be what is fuelling your anxiety. I had a similar experience as my first memory of pregnancy is of my mother being pregnant and the baby being stillborn. While my mother's approach is different from yours, it means I was aware from a much younger age that things can go very wrong in pregnancy, and I think you might be similar, in which case you may benefit from exploring your feelings with a professional.

I do think that some people lack "emotional imagination". My DM certainly assumed that my experiences would be physically similar to hers (which were unusual), and was very shocked that they weren't and that I needed an EMCS. She was also shocked by my mental reaction to pregnancy (anxiety) and how my labour was handled. I think this affected her ability to be supportive because it was far removed from her own experiences. She also set herself up as a bit of a guru on whether I had PND, which wasn't helpful.

I would gently suggest that you stop discussing birth with your DM full stop. It obviously isn't going to help you feel less anxious - and hopefully your experiences will be different from hers - and it sounds as though your relationship means she won't be able to offer the support you need. I suggest you seek that support elsewhere, whether through sympathetic friends, hypnobirthing or even a few therapy sessions. Have you spoken to your midwife about how you feel?

I find you can't win as a first time mum.

If you read a lot of birth stories, really think about how you'll cope with the pain, research what can go wrong, etc, then apparently you're being silly, worrying over nothing, stop complaining women do it every day, you have to be positive.

Of course if you try to stay positive and not worry, the comments will be - you've got your head in clouds, you're being unrealistic, naive, you aren't preparing, oh you think it will be easy but it won't - you'll never cope, etc etc.

Screw em all and cope the best way you can, whether that be reading everything or nothing.

Hi OP
First things first, and
Please be gentle with yourself.
I feel sorry for any woman who has been through a stillbirth but some of your mum's comments, especially from someone with a psychology degree, are not helpful.
I am one of your horror stories.
My advice is four-fold.

1. Epidural on birth plan. Try and have it done early.
2. Insist they keep it topped up and that they tell you when to push, none of this let it wear off so you can push bollocks.
3. If you do need an intervention, push as they pull with suction (ventouse/vacuum birth) rather than forceps.
4. Breastfeeding - lots of nipple cream (lansinoh), breastfeeding tea (has fenugreek in) and babymoon (in bedwith baby for a week). Do it for as long as you want to.

It's not a competition, none of it. It's not a lioness test or endurance test or any of that shit. It's not a race to the bottom. Ignore all of that. I wish you well and the very best

Definitely try Hypnobirthing, I did with my second and it was a wonderful, calm, empowering experience! I had my 10lb 3 little girl with only gas and air, without any intervention or a single stitch! Hypnobirthing may seem a bit odd initially, but once you understand the science behind it you see it is pretty similar to the type of training and mindset that athletes use. I still use the techniques three years later to stay calm when I'm stressing out and when I'm running. If you can't afford the proper classes then there are a few online things like the Zenmuma birthing toolkit, and some of the books have MP3 downloads like The Hypnobirthing Book by Katherine Graves. And your mum is being unreasonable, I don't know of a single person who wasn't at least a little worried about their birth!

Yanbu at all op, however feeding your anxiety is not going to help, the more calm you can keep yourself the better, even if you end up having an emcs if you are calm it will help you through. I would suggest that you and your birthing partner get info on relaxation techniques, breathing etc and work out how you want to approach pain relief - eg tens machines are V effective (ime), at what point would you choose epidural etc so your birth partner is able to advocate for you and work with you to keep you calm and relaxed throughout.

Yes, some women have traumatic births but the overwhelming majority don’t.

Given your history with anxiety and depression, did you really think that feeding them with ‘birth trauma’ stories was going to help? Your pregnancy has triggered your underlying anxiety and you’ve been simply feeding it. Your mothers isn’t being helpful but you appear to be scapegoating her for your difficulties in acknowledging/ accepting your own predisposition to anxiety.

Apprehension is normal but obsessively looking for birth horror stories is something very different. Seek out support from professionals who will be far better equipped to support you now and post birth.

I was anxious about the birth of DD but chose not to feed it by searching out ‘worst outcome’ stories.