To be shit scared of childbirth

[jezzy56]

I have a dc already who was born by emergency c-section.

Pregnant again and hoping for a vaginal delivery this time but I'm so scared. I guess it's maybe fear of the unknown. I had contractions with my ds for several hours but never experienced the pain of a vaginal birth. The thought of tearing and having stitches down there makes me cringe.

Can anyone offer any positive stories or experience please? I'm feeling so anxious that I'm considering requesting an elective section but I know the risks and recovery for that are tough too and I would like to do it naturally if I can.

I had an episiotomy and didnt feel a thing down there. Didnt even know the baby's head was out/ the baby was fully out it was so numb. (In a good way, I quite liked the pushing bit).

I like you was terrified during pregnancy, but by the time I was due I was just desperate for her to be out. I think its a totally normal feeling and Im sure it will pass. If you're really worried, plan for an epidural (and vaginal delivery).

I had some great coaching classes by midwife before my second as MLU. It was brilliant. She talked me through riding the contractions, how to stay in control and not panic. I found hypnobirthing cd before very calming and used some of the techniques. Ds2 birh was lovely experience

And it's normal to be frightening. Even with my 3rd I was a bit worried about the birth part.

I agree with @nanbread
A great book, lots of positive stories and allows you to feel empowered that our bodies can do this

I have had three vaginal births and honestly my first wasn't anywhere near as scary or painful as I had built it up to be in my head. I felt really empowered after each one and on a natural high offer what I'd achieved.

Yes it was painful but it wasn't a bad painful. Not painful like breaking a limb but a positive pain as it meant my labour was progressing.

If you are feeling very anxious about it talk to your midwife. Also, now that things are a bit mor open could you possibly attend some pregnancy yoga classes and look into hypno birthing?

Good luck with it all

If you've experienced the contractions (not sure how far along you got) but that is by far the worst bit (the transition being the peak of this). Once you can start pushing the pain is better. The actual pushing out and tearing is nothing in comparison. I tore quite badly and didn't feel it at all. The "ring of fire" is sore but a manageable very localised pain.

@SherryPalmer

I have to say, I didn’t find labour empowering at all and the contractions were excruciating but the fear of tearing was much worse than the reality and I had an extended second degree tear.

This was very similar to my experience.

I agree wholeheartedly with Feelslikealot.

I also have the Milli Hill Book the positive birth experience. Happy to send it on to you as it was going to the charity shop (post baby)

Really the contractions are the worst bit - you've experienced those already.

By the time you get to crowning and them actually coming out, you are so high on the pain and the endorphins of the exercise/labour that you don't feel things in quite the same way. Its not like trying to push a baby out stone cold, you've been warming up to this for hours.

And it's over quick. I had time to shout "ah f**k!!!" and then it was over and he was out!

Baby must come out - so go with it and don't stress. You can't stop it, so go with it.

I had episiotomy first time round and third degree tear second time round - and I didn't notice it as such. Just a kind of five second "ah f**k it hurts!!" then over!

I don't know if it is the same with a cx but as soon as the baby is out of your vagina you feel brilliant! It doesn't hurt any more and they are OUT! And you have DONE IT and it is OVER! Ah the relief.

People with major injuries aren't the norm.
I had a vaginal birth with no help as the hospital didn't realise I was very dilated and left me on a table by myself during Covid. It really is true that your body knows what to do and with only gas and air, I can tell you that you do not feel the tear. Your bodies natural drugs take over. I had a bad second degree tear and never even had stitches and it all healed up fine. You will be fine but pregnancy yoga and the positive birth company come highly recommended. You need to get into the correct mindset to allow your body to do what it does best

I had episiotomy first time round and third degree tear second time round - and I didn't notice it as such. Just a kind of five second "ah fk it hurts!!" then over!

The 'I didnt even notice tearing/being cut' is a bit of a double edged statement...

On one hand, that's 'good' that you didn't notice. On the other, how much agony must someone be in otherwise to not notice their most sensitive body parts being ripped apart or cut open?

I mean, if I said that I was being beaten up so brutally that I didn't register I'd been stabbed, the take-home from that wouldn't be that being stabbed is fine, it would be that it must have been a horrific beating to mask something so awful.

Epidural at 6cms, had a lovely doze. I could feel when it was time to push but had no pain, at all.
I had an episiotomy but again, felt nothing.
It healed quickly.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, came close to feeling like an utter GODDESS when I had my baby in my arms afterwards.

Birth 1 - 4 hours, no intervention, no pain relief, water birth, very minor tear with no stitching required.

Birth 2 - 3 hours, no pain relief, no intervention, no tearing.

Neither were the funnest days of my life but really wasn’t that bad.

@Babyboomtastic

I had episiotomy first time round and third degree tear second time round - and I didn't notice it as such. Just a kind of five second "ah fk it hurts!!" then over!

The 'I didnt even notice tearing/being cut' is a bit of a double edged statement...

On one hand, that's 'good' that you didn't notice. On the other, how much agony must someone be in otherwise to not notice their most sensitive body parts being ripped apart or cut open?

I mean, if I said that I was being beaten up so brutally that I didn't register I'd been stabbed, the take-home from that wouldn't be that being stabbed is fine, it would be that it must have been a horrific beating to mask something so awful.

Ha ha!

I take your point but it's not because the rest of your body is in even MORE pain. It's because you are kind of high on all the hormones.

Bit like running a long race? It hurts but at the same time you're kind of desensitised to it and your brain is buzzing? You find you just can carry on somehow?

Pain is in the brain not the body. So when you've done however many hours of hard exercise - which is what labour is - your brain chemistry is zinging and pinging. When it comes to pushing it's really not like doing it stone cold on a wet Tuesday morning. It's the culmination of a long process and you're in an altered state in terms of pain/sensation.

If you gave me an episiotomy or third degree tear now I would scream my head off. But then I am just sitting here drinking my tea rejoicing that the kids went to school on time and I am not in any way prepared for it!

I find it insensitive reading the comments that say 'your body knows what to do, you'll be fine' when so many women aren't fine, their bodies don't know what to do, and they wouldn't survive without intervention. Some women don't survive birth. Some babies don't.

In the countries with the lowest maternal mortality rate, approx two women die per 100000 live births. In the country with the highest, it's 1150 women who die per 100000 live births.

I get that it's intended to be reassuring (and my comment here isn't intended to be the opposite, OP, the chances in the UK that you and baby will come through it okay are overwhelmingly high). But we don't have to pretend that birth is some magical process where it will all go okay because that's what you're 'designed' to do.

Instead we should be focusing on the fact that we're extraordinarily fortunate to live in a country with access to medical assistance during childbirth to improve our chances and reduce suffering. Birth is a crap shoot and all about luck, you get what you get. Humans aren't great at being able to recognise their experience is due in a large part to luck, we think if we prepared for birth in some way that a straightforward birth was down to that.

I mean, if I said that I was being beaten up so brutally that I didn't register I'd been stabbed, the take-home from that wouldn't be that being stabbed is fine, it would be that it must have been a horrific beating to mask something so awful

Quite, @Babyboomtastic!

Again nail on the head chick pea. Op is being very sensible weighing up her options and actually thinking about it rather than going along with this idea that because women are designed to give birth that it'll all be ok if you just breathe. So if it goes wrong, does that mean you didn't breathe right? No, it means that something went wrong and you were unlucky.

Op if you're that scared of a vaginal birth - in this country you can choose. Don't put yourself through something you're terrified of because of this ideal that's pushed on women from the moment they conceive that a vaginal birth is somehow better than an ELCS. It's not. What's best is whatever is right for the individual woman.

@Feelslikealot

You will do it because that's what we're designed to do. Breathe. Be calm and breathe.

This is bullshit. You were lucky. It was nothing to do with how much you breathed.

Ha yes. I was fit and healthy and excited about natural birth. It is ended up a back to back mess with ptsd and not able to walk properly for a year. Sick of hearing about if only I'd done hypnobirthing. Fuck off.

@HornbeamLane

People with major injuries aren't the norm. I had a vaginal birth with no help as the hospital didn't realise I was very dilated and left me on a table by myself during Covid. It really is true that your body knows what to do and with only gas and air, I can tell you that you do not feel the tear. Your bodies natural drugs take over. I had a bad second degree tear and never even had stitches and it all healed up fine. You will be fine but pregnancy yoga and the positive birth company come highly recommended. You need to get into the correct mindset to allow your body to do what it does best

Absolute bollocks

It really is true that your body knows what to do

You need to get into the correct mindset to allow your body to do what it does best

This is such damaging nonsense.

I advise listening to the many, many women who wouldn't have survived and whose babies wouldn't have survived if they'd been left to get on with it.

Mindset is no match for:

Labour that doesn't progress
Problems with the umbilical cord (for example being wrapped around baby's neck)
Abnormal heart rate or baby going into distress
Waters breaking early
Excessive bleeding
Shoulder dystocia
Breech position

To name just a few.

The idea that if you just approach birth with a positive mindset and breathe your body will take over and all will be well is such harmful nonsense as well as being incredibly insensitive to the women who die during childbirth, don't get to take their baby home, or who are left with lifelong injuries.

Being encouraging is great, but this isn't encouraging. This is harmful misinformation. You got lucky with your birth, please don't try to extrapolate your experience and assume it is the same for everyone else.

@ChickPeaSalad both advices are good.

I had all my births at the hospital where they could help me if something went wrong. Actually emergency team had to be called for one of them

But also you can't dismiss what your own body is capable of or what it is telling you. There is a lot of fear about labour. It is very painful not going to lie (possibly the worst pain you've had so far) but it also feels very different from other pains.

I've only had one, but it was horrendous. Induced at 35 weeks. I wasn't scared about the birth part, I accepted it would hurt, wanted to do it without drugs, breath through it blah blah blah. A couple of hours in, I was begging for an epidural, which never comes as quickly as you need, and mine didn't work! I genuinely didn't think I could get through it. The pain was unimaginable. I know it's not the same for everyone.

But I must stress, the pushing bit was not an issue for me. I had an episiotomy and forceps but after the pain of contractions, that was a breeze.

Recovery from stitches was also hell. They got infected and I couldn't sit down properly. I couldn't get up easily either and I felt it really hampered by ability to look after my newborn. Certainly hampered my enjoyment of it. It was also impossible to keep the wound dry and healing took an age. My stitches came apart and I felt my vagina had been massacred. I was very upset at the time.

OP, I felt like you after a first failed induction and emergency c-section. I will spare you the hours I spent deliberating as to what to do. I felt I should try for a VBAC and that part of me would regret it if I didn’t but I’ll be honest: I was too scared. (I was shit scared of both options, frankly.)

For me, key questions were whether I had a good chance of a successful VBAC and what the worst case scenarios were in either birth mode.

My view after weighing up the evidence from RCOG papers and so on was that I did not have a great chance of a successful VBAC as I’d failed to go into labour before and induction for 50 hours only got me to 2cm dilated. So the EMCS was for a “mum-related” reason rather than baby in distress or similar. My age, the predicted size of the baby and the likelihood of going overdue again (which I did) were all factors counting against me.

I felt the worst case scenarios of a c section (such as bowel damage) were relatively unlikely in a controlled ELCS scenario, whereas the odds of my worst case scenario happening in a VBAC and then being dismissed/not taken seriously/expected to put up with life-changing damage were much higher.

So I decided to book a ELCS for 41 weeks with a view to trying for a VBAC if the baby came before then. He didn’t, so I had the section - and that was the right choice for me. In hindsight, I should have scrapped the VBAC plan and just gone for a section but it felt important to me to see whether I went into labour - I feel like now I know my body just doesn’t work that way.

So don’t discount your feelings and don’t feel you have to try for a VBAC. People talk about recovery times but I’d rather recover from a controlled ELCS than a botched instrumental delivery.

I think @MyCatHatesWhiskas has given some really good advice. In your case it isn’t just about the pros and cons of vaginal birth vs a csection, it’s also about your chances of having a successful VBAC (and factoring in the risks of a unsuccessful VBAC).