What constitutes a 'normal' birth? If I hate smears will I be rubbish at giving birth? Some nice stories please, if realistic!!

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I'm in very early stages of pregnancy, 16 weeks but already I'm thinking about d day!

I plan to do a hypnobirthing course and try to prepare myself as much as possible for labour and birth.

I can't say that I'm terrified at the thought of the pain yet but this may well change as the time gets closer!

It's the fear of the unknown for me as this will be my first birth.

I hate having smear tests - does this mean I will be rubbish at giving birth?

I listen to lots of birth stories and probably watch far too much OBEM!

One colleague took great pleasure in telling us non-mums about her experience of tearing from 'front to back' over coffee break.

Sorry for rambling, but I just can't think about how I'm going to behave in labour and feel and it scares me

This sounds trivial but I'm worried about having a horrible midwife, remember the one that laughed this week when Rachel asked for an epidural?

Is giving birth all as dramatic as it looks on tv? Can it ever be pleasant? Any nice stories to share?

You can't compare with having a smear; a smear is just a not particularly pleasant examination you have to go through, whereas with labour you get a baby at the end!

I don't consider myself to have a high pain threshold, but I managed both my babies on a little gas and air. (in fact interestingly most of the women in my ante natal class who banged on a lot about wanting completely natural births and that they would just 'deal with' the pain ended up having epidurals! Whereas I kept quiet because I wasnt feeling hugely confident, same as you, but I knew I would prefer not to have loads of full-on intervention.

I also had a strong feeling of wanting things natural first time round, because quite a few mums I know had the full works first time round and really wanted a natural birth second time, as although an epidural takes the pain away it didn't seem to make for a satisfying experience overall

You can do it! Don't be put off by horror stories and OBEM (which just seems to show a lot of screamy women flat in bed having heavy duty drugs pumped into them!)

Most pregnancies and births have the potential to be totally natural so believe in yourself !

I've had tonnes of smears and all kinds of things prodded up there over the last few years. Those have varied in how unpleasant they were, but birth is a completely different experience. Tbh it's never occurred to me they were even vaguely similar.

I think hypnobirthing should really help if you're a bit anxious about it.

Unfortunately I guess there's no such thing as a 'normal' birth but you just have to go with what feels right, or just what is necessary for you and your baby to be healthy.

I had a very very long labour, loads of bleeding, a TENS machine, a couple of hours of G&A between 7cm and starting to push and 4.5 hours of pushing but I know I could have coped with more pain.

My friend just had her second and went for an epidural. She said it was very pleasant and easy and she's do that several times over no problem. It's not at all how I'd want to give birth but we all want different things and cope in different ways.

I have a rubbish pain threshold and although I wanted a natural birth, I had doubts about whether I'd be able to cope. I tried to read loads of positive birth stories as my due date approached (this thread would have been perfect!) and tell myself that my body knew what to do. I think this just helped me feel less anxious.

I had a very smooth and low key labour at home and then in the pool at our MLU. Yes, it was painful but I found a strength I didn't know I had and I was able to cope much better than I'd ever imagined. I had a 2nd degree tear but had no idea at the time and have healed up fine.

I do share my positive story if people are talking negatively about the prospect of giving birth as I hope this might counterbalance the horror stories you hear.

Hello ive not had a smear yet to compare to child birth but i would definatly say tooth ache is worse!! had 2 natural births the first a water birth second nothin as i got to the hospital within 20 mins he was here , the best advice i can give is it doesnt hurt so much but the first time round its abnormal so you wont be used to the feeling but try and remain calm as possible because its normally when ppl get panicked like you see on the telly that it becomes difficult good luck x