Petrified of Birth

[Pegasus1234]

Hi,

Im new on here. Im 21 weeks+ and this is my first baby.

I met with my consultant today for the first time. I am consultant led because of fibroids and previous overactive bladder problems for which I was under the gynaecologist.

I explained that I was terrified of giving birth and wished to be considered for C section.

I am not too posh to push, just have an absolute deep rooted fear, it makes me physically sick, cant sleep due to anxiety etc. Having nightmares. I also have personal reasons I wont go into going back to my teens.

I felt totally indimidated there were 4 people in the room in total all staring at me, judging me.

The consultant basically didnt listen to me, and asked if a tour of the labour ward would help!!

Being a health professional myself I explained that I knew exactly what was involved. I have observed both births and c sections as part of my nurse training.

He said they dont perform sections for women without a medical reason.
I would have thought that fibroids, bladder weakness and absolute fear would be reasons.

Im not a particularly confident person, and make it difficult to have my voice heard sometimes. I just felt I was being dismissed as a silly woman who needed to go home .

I feel helpless, so upset and alone.

Can anyone offer any advice, or has been through a similar situation.

Thanks

thunks, I knew I remembered this thread -

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childbirth/1453750-Ooops-what-do-I-do-about-this-therapist-for-birth-trauma-antenatal-mh-issues-who-is-really-pushing-me-to-have-an-ELCS -

As an example of cbt counselling, this is WORLDS away from what you have described on this thread! where I think you said cbt counsellors have 'zilch' interest in what someone's birth choices are...

of course, you can get rotten apples in every barrel, so I'm not suggesting anyone write off an entire arm of therapy because of one therapist.

With the greatest respect in the world, it really does sound from that thread as if you weren't attracted by the idea of cs at all - and that you realised that yourself, by giving it a lot of thought. Which I personally think is right and good' and great that you were able to arrive at that realisation. But it doesn't sound to me, from what you've said, that cbt helped you arrive at the realisation - you preferred the sound of what the mws talking about hypnobirthing had said, not what your (rather dodgy!) sounding counsellor had said.... and you made a decision based on that.

I'm not for a second criticising your decision or judging you or anything like that, but I do feel that the account you've given on this thread of how cbt helped you is a little idealised?

Of course you may have dumped this counsellor, got a fabulous one who really helped you, in which case your earlier thread was only a partial account. But you had in any case decided that you really didn't want a cs very early on in the process.

Thunks, the point I am trying to make and feel is a really important one to make is the thought process that a lot of people are going through and just why the idea of CBT or counselling is so distressing to a large number of women who are going through in an effort to try and get people to understand how to treat anyone with tokophobia. No one out there really seems to understand it, and because its taboo no one talks about it so no one can get an incite into the mindset of people going through the process.

Its really important that people start to take on board the lack of trust and the feeling of not being listened to as it is central to both primary and secondary tokophobia. There could be ways to prevent women from developing it in the first place, and I do think that this is area is what needs to be looked at most to achieve that.

The message needs to be got across to actually make it, so neither you nor I have as many problems getting through this and facing so many obstacles from unsympathetic and ignorant individuals.

I wish you all the best and hope everything goes to plan. You said you wished you have the certainty in your decision that you feel I had in mine. In someways I wish that I had the choice you feel you do; if I don't get what I want where does that leave me? Not to mention I'm left with a niggling sense of failure despite of my confidence in it being right for me because of these cultural pressures and the fact that an ELCS is looked down. It does somehow make me feel 'less of a woman' for want of a better way of putting it and I do feel the need to justify it all the time and with that comes a great deal of defensiveness about it. Thats not right.

I do feel that there shouldn't be this competition about VBs and CS as it harms everyone really. It doesn't help that there is an effective "tuft war" within the profession between consultants and midwives. I just think it leaves women in the middle trying to pick their way through a minefield of propaganda and professional self-interest and beliefs.

Again another message that urgently needs to be got across and prejudices wiped out.

HmmThinkingAboutIt thats how I feel, if I dont get what I want I don't know where I will be. Of course I am happy that the ELCS is booked and I do trust my HCPs but I just don't trust myself! If I don't make it to 39 weeks I just dont know how I will cope. I worry constantly that if I don't have the c/s, I will struggle to bond with my daughter.

We shouldn't feel less of a woman for this though, we are all just doing our best an it's a horrible thing to go through. I know what you mean about having to justify it. If it was a physical medical issue it never has to be justified (I'm not just thinking of pregnancy/childbirth but other medical issues too).

Only my husband, parents and 2 close friends know about my tokophobia and ELCS, I find it so hard and embarrassing to talk about. So imagine my horror when one of the friends (who I thought I cold trust) told another friend about my ELCS- the other friend asked about it by text message! I didn't want it to be common knowledge as i dont want loads of questions, so am so annoyed. I don't want to have to justify it to lots of people.

ariel, that friend's behaviour really sucks. IME, with all the confused attitudes and prejudices about ELCS, I've found there's a real danger of people wanting to talk to you about your decision when in fact they are just using you as a vehicle for their own anxieties/fears/longings about birth.

It's none of their business and you just have to say you'd rather not talk about it thanks. If one of your friends was having a homebirth, would you ring her up and quiz her about her decision, all the while telling her you think an elcs is best? No, thought not.

Okay, it's been about ten posts since I said that I felt women should have appropriate mental health support as in access to perinatal mental health services NOT necessarily CBT.

I did ditch the therapist. I didn't decide early on. OCD is a bit different to tokophobia as I tried to explain, I doubt every decision as my fear is about death and dying in childbirth (me or baby) which no option can rule out - not vaginal birth.

Either what you are describing is a mental health issue which needs professional support or it's just a case that what you want is straightforward maternal request based on your decision (which can have mental health grounding) but I don't see how it can be both. If it's on health grounds shouldn't an appropriate specialist be involved?

Also not sure where you got idea I haven't had same bullying obstetric consultants, unaware midwives, delaying decision until end etc... I told how I sought support at 5 weeks but didn't get it til 28 and of horror consultant visit last week.

Perinatal mh team have been ONLY hcps to listen because they get it. Mainstream services have been the distressing and bullying ones. So I am still not getting how it's necessarily better to not have this support from specialists who can advise and support women who don't need counselling or meds AND women who do.

I'm sort of sick of saying I appreciate counselling is clearly not appropriate clinically for all but it can be for some. I didn't realise this about tokophobia at outset, I do now.

Linking to and critiqueing my care and my process through old threads seems a funny thing to do to someone anxious and due tomorrow as though there is doubt about my condition being as entrenched as yours. It's just different. It shifts, yours doesn't seem to. ELCS is clearly the right thing for you... Have said this a few times. It won't be for everyone. That's all.

Hmmm, I agree with your whole post. I think the core issue is many professionals just don't get how seriously affected we are by our respective mh issues. Who gets it? I didn't get it about yours, you didn't about mine. It is all under radar and taboo. I feel totally ashamed of being so het up about it and paralysed by fear of something that comes easily to so many others, to have this skittish brain that perceives and inflates the threat in everything, to know that my fears are bith rational and irrational. I feel crazy right now, yet I know I am not. I am tired of battling too. I am just doing my best to be positive because I need to. Nearly there. Then it will switch to SIDS. Sigh. But I can take meds and hopefully be me again..

That's what I thought fruity, I didn't want people questioning my choice etc, I could imagine getting some strange and probably mean responses. So I told 2 close friends who I thought I could trust and now feel quite betrayed! She knew how much the tokophobia affects me. Exactly, I'd never tell someone else how to have their baby! All I believe is all women should get good care and be supported, whatever their choice is.

Thunks don be ashamed of your fear, you didn't choose this and you are doing your best which is all you can do. When I'm having a good moment I do try and tell myself Im being brave to face it and think it shows how much all of us love and want our babies to go through it all.

Ariel I understand what you mean. I'm really (over) sensitive about it. My family don't know and I don't want them to know. I'm particularly funny about my Mum knowing.

My SIL and BIL only know because DH pretty much felt he had no option but to tell them, but fortunately SIL in particular has turned out to be surprisingly sympathetic in part because she ended up having an ELCS for medical reasons. Turned out she has colleagues who are currently doing some research into the subject (YAY!!!!) and she'd only missed being part of the study by a couple of days.

I went away with some of DH friends a couple of months ago, and one of them was 6 months pregnant. I was dreading dealing with it. Of course the obvious "so do you think you will have kids soon?" question came up. I kind of froze at first but eventually just ended up, blurting the whole thing out and saying I honestly didn't know if I would and if I did I would requesting an ELCS. I felt a lot better afterwards, and after they explained it they understood and sympathised enough to understand the logic behind it. Friend is planning a homebirth, which I think is brilliant, and actually what I was secretly hoping she would do as it will suit her down to the ground.

It was only later in the weekend, when one of the others who wasn't present for the conversation and I didn't really want to know came out with the immortal line about some friends of hers "For some bizarre reason they don't have kids". Cue meltdown... Wasn't going to try and enlighten her though. She doesn't have the empathy to confide in and she is very know-it-ally (basically pig ignorant).

Not exactly how I'd cope with strangers asking questions or passing comments. I have a bad feeling that I might be a little too defensive about it. (Something I'd need to formulate a plan for).

DH is my total rock about it all though. Couldn't ask for anyone more supportive or understanding, despite me taking it all out on him in one way or another.

Thunks no, hypnobirthing is not irrational but neither is the choice of elective caesarean.

Birth is largely luck - most women - over 50% - have a straightforward untraumatic birth but for about 30% birth is traumatic.

Hypnobirthing probably does improve feelings of being in control for people who are able to be affected by hynosis.

For women for whom the fear of a traumatic birth, vaginal stitching and tears and hours of agony are too horrible to contemplate, then a caesarean is a rational choice providing they don't want a large family.

That sounds just like me! Before I was pregnant if the subject ever came up then I'd often tell people I'd only ever want a c/s. But since becoming pregnant I'm so defensive and I don't like talking about it. Luckily too my husband is amazing but it's so hard for him.

I even get freaked out by people asking me quite normal questions as my way of dealing with it is to talk to as few people as poss about baby. Fo example when MIL asked the due date, I refused to give an exact date, just said late Oct, even when she asked a couple of times. It's actually sooner than that and a lot sooner as my ELCS is at 39 weeks. But I just didn't wan to say! It makes normal things so difficult. I dread people asking things as worry I'll flip out!

One of the things that bothers me, is customers saying something. Its really not something I'd want to make polite conversation over in the first place, and certainly not with strangers. And with customers you can't just be blunt and end the conversation. So I'm envisaging having to have an awkward conversation with my boss over the issue. And thats would be awkward enough given the "I'm not having children" speeches I've had over the years. (Just another reason to add to the list of why I want to change jobs atm!).

Not sure how you avoid the subject for 9 months (well realistically 6). It sounds really stupid to be worrying about that on top of everything else, but it is about self esteem.

Tips on this one would be really interesting to hear!!!

Ushy I said from the outset there are no irrational choices in this for those of us petrified. Unfortunately the hypnobirthing effect has worn off for me the closer I get and now the tapes that relaxed me cause panic. There was a point elcs was my answer too and there is no guarantee it won't be tomorrow. That is what OCD is, the imp of the mind... I just spend my time trying to ground myself as this chitter chatter of what ifs and flashes of graphic internal horror films try to take over. Unfortunately the effect of each wears off but cbt has helped me to understand that this is the ocd, it's not me. It's clearly a very different disorder to tokophobia, which obviously needs different handling.

I haven't told my mum either. I miss her as a sounding board.. But it would freak her out. Only dh and a doctor friend know. I tried telling an online group of friends but I felt they were freaked and I can't bring myself to speak about it.

Ariel, you are right about trying to see it as being brave and tackling it. That is a more compassionate way of viewing it.

The daftest thing is that if the research is correct, and I don't see why it wouldn't be given the same thing has shown up in several studies in different countries, then between 1 in 6 and 1 and 10 women have an extreme level of fear. But we aren't talking about it!

Its not even a new thing. I don't believe its women somehow becoming softer and having unrealistic expectations or being influenced by the media.

I've found a certain amount of reassurance from an article I found which quoted from a French book by a doctor dated from 1858.

Dr. Louis Victor Marcé described the fears of the mother-to-be in these terms: ?If they are giving birth for the first time, waiting for unknown pain worries them beyond all measure and they are plunged into an indescribable state of anxiety. If they are already mothers, they are terrified by the memory of the past and the prospect of the future; they are privately convinced that they are going to die from the ordeal which awaits them?.

Marcé added that ?this idea becomes absolutely fixed in their heads and triggers a melancholy frame of mind which takes over all their thoughts?

Apparently the book goes over this at great length...

thunks, absolutely nothing I've said has been to doubt your condition. I absolutely in no way think 'mine is more serious' or anything like that. At all. I just thought I could remember an account of a counsellor you met which didn't fit with the very positive account you were giving of the process here. I am VERY glad you got another counsellor, and very glad they have clearly been helpful for you.

If there's one thing going through the whole fear and birth thing has taught me, it's too have a lot more compassion for people with other problems, and to accept that I don't need to understand them, or have them make sense TO ME to feel that compassion.

In other words, its a pretty damn natural response.

HmmThinkingAboutIt, would love to be able to offer tips on what to do with people saying things, especially customers... Other than to conceal bump where possible (I know that sounds terrible!) This is how much I affects the whole pregnancy for me, when we met up with PIL the other day, I wore a dress that hid bump, tried to even suck in tummy a bit (totally pointless!) and kept my coa on, as I didn't want them looking at bump. I feel so ridiculous for these things, it's good to share though.

It was kind of the way I was thinking I'd have to deal with it!!! I'm guessing there is a point where you can't though. Keep me updated on how you tackle that one!!!

In the words of Gnarls Barkley..

Who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha bless your soul..
You think you're in control?

Well I think you're crazy
..... Just like me.

It is pretty rational to be afraid.. It is unpredictable, scary and high stakes. But culturally unacceptable to admit.

Fruity, it's part of the nature of this thing for me to reframe this... that was also right after my dx and still only a mere 12 weeks ago.. if I were able to confidently choose and accept my own decisions, I wouldn't have this condition.
They used to call OCD the doubter's disease. I am very susceptible to wildly changing what I think I want depending on what my current obsession or fear is.. When that resolves, it is replaced. It's very unstable, but the underlying theme remains the same. The main thing for me is to catch and defuse the thought, realise it is a thought and not a fact, try to challenge the idea I can control or be responsible for an outcome of something so unpredictable, try to let it go without doing something that fuels it like researching likelihood of x or y happening or reading horror stories. It's basically about assuming Godlike responsibility,feeling I have to make a perfect decision, that if I don't and there is a catastrophe that will be my fault. Yet rationally understanding this is nonsense and doesn't match my idea of who I am as a sensible, competent person. So each time I choose a path, I sound certain... For a short while. Then the panic sets in.

Such a pain in the bum, that's it really!!

Ariel I have been same with hiding it. Try not to talk about it etc. Usually just change subject. Hate it when people ask if I am excited or tell me I will have my baby soon. Always think: how do you know? Drives me nuts when people say go with the flow, stop planning... I CAN'T!!!

Well the next thing I'm dreading is going back to where I used to live and meeting up with a group of friends (I moved away last year). Thats in a couple of weeks and they will all be staring at bump and asking questions. I'm not looking forward to it now after my friend told one of the others about my ELCS, I don't know who else she may have told and am scared of confronting her about it. I might just cancel now tbh!

I know this isn't strictly relevant, but I remember reading once that one of the reasons girls used to go into convents was tokophobia - it was pretty much the only way they could be sure they would never be faced with the prospect of giving birth. The article I read speculated that the development of anesthesia and C-sections had been largely responsible for the dramatic fall in the numbers of girls going into convents in the twentieth century.
Pegasus, I wish I'd been a bit more afraid of birth - I approached my own VB in a completely relaxed and blase fashion, convinced it would all be fine, and ended up being in labour for a week, having a Keillands delivery and a fourth degree tear, which left me faecally incontinent and necessitated a temporary colostomy for the repair. Birth is a completely rational thing to be scared of - our bodies are not at all "designed to give birth" - there is a terrible trade-off between our upright stance, which makes the pelvic opening smaller, and our babies' big heads. That's why giving birth is the most dangerous time of a woman's life, and rightly feared in most cultures. If only 50% of births are totally routine and non-traumatic, these are not great odds. Obviously there are risks involved in CS too, but I can understand that an ELCS would feel more controllable than a VB.
I hope you get a sympathetic hearing from your health professionals, and that you are able to have a safe and successful ELCS.

Yeah thinks that's what I do, always finding ways of changing subject. I know people are well meaning but I end up feeling really shaky and angry. Like when MIL asked where I was having baby, I wanted to scream! Was worried what question could follow....