Accidentally watched One Born Every Minute and I am now even more terrified.

[everythinghippie29]

I say accidentally...it came on and I thought maybe seeing the birthing process might make it all seem less daunting. My sister is a midwife and has always told me probably more than I needed to know about childbirth before I was pregnant.

Now I'm 15 weeks with first baby and literally keep feeling this cloying, terrifying fear over how badly I will deal with the pain. I live far the other end of the country to my family although DPs family are down here and I get on with them I don't know how I'd feel about it just being me, DP or DPs Mum present when I am in labour.

I know its natural, I know my body will (hopefully) take control and at the end I will have my little baby but I am literally terrified of the pain (I didn't deal too well with bloody toothache) and more importantly handling it badly and being a huge drama queen!
I'm worried it will change how my partner sees me which, again I'm sure this will be the last of my worries when the time comes but I'm terrified. I can't keep doing this to myself for the next 5 months, if I'm this scared already I can only see it getting worse.

Any advice on how to live with this inevitability!?

I was and still am a bit shit with pain which is why when it came to labour, I decided I had to be practically dying before it would be time for the hospital.

Turns out I'm better than I thought and ended up delivering my 10lb 1oz son at home with no pin relief :) midwife did attend at 9cms and decided we wouldn't make the hospital in time

My advice, have faith in yourself! :)

Make sure you understand the birth process and the pain relief options that you might have available.
I found NCT classes really useful for this - for understanding how to relax and breathe in the early stages and understanding how the different sorts of pain relief work.
I know some people believe that ignorance is bliss and that it easier to get through the experience with no preconceptions, but I'm one of those people who likes as much info as possible.

I think Narky is right though - have faith in yourself and take as much control of the situation as you can. You will be so proud of yourself when your baby arrives, no matter if you turn out to be a silent pusher or a noisy pusher (or something in between).

Second that Narky!
I was petrified, my mum is a retired mw and told me what to expect and told me all about the pain etc so I knew what was to come. I loved watching OBEM, but I do think they over dramatise it sometimes!
I found the pushing the easy bit, it was the contractions that were the most uncomfortable. To me it felt like needing a wee really bad that it stung, but manageable. I had gas and air, then at the last minute they gave me a half dose of pethadine. I wanted a water birth, but I couldn't have pethadine if I did so had to make the decision. Because I was shit scared that the pain was going to get a lot worse, I went for the drugs!
Our ds was 8lb 13oz, god knows where he was hiding!

I had him August 2011 and at the time they were giving away a thing called Laboraide on the Internet. It is a mouthpiece you bite down on when pushing, I don't know if it made any difference as he was my first child, but I'm sure it helped me push longer!

Bad tooth ache for me, outstripped labour in every way. If you do not want to experience the pain of contractions then you do not have to. In the main, epidurals work well at controlling it.

We are not in the dark Ages anymore- you do not have to endure pain if you choose not to.

a.) it frickin hurts for a sustained length of time so if you think you handle pain badly just have the epidural. There is nothing wrong with that (and I wish to god I'd had time to have one myself but I faffed around with gas and air first then it was too late).

b.) if I saw the person I loved and had impregnated (i'm female but you know what I mean!) going through all that I'd just feel incredibly sorry for them and think the sun shone out their arse so please don't worry about what your partner will think! (and tbh you'll be so unconcerned by the time you're in full on labour that it probably won't bother you).

You can have pain relief you know! It will hurt but you knew that anyway. You just have to go with the flow and if you need pain relief ask for it!

My midwife said to me on numerous occasions that telly shows were v. unhelpful because they only show the dramatic stuff and also the scripted ones (as opposed to the reality ones) show it wrong anyway. Avoid!

I found a birth pool helped a lot with the pain in the earlier stages.

If you do do NCT or similar it may help your DP as he will be better informed about the options too. That was the major benefit we got from it.

Try not to worry. You don't know what lies in store. I anticipated something awful but was one of the lucky ones - it was a very quick labour - yes excruciating at the time but next thing the baby popped out and within ten minutes I'd started to forget the pain.

Trust me, sleep deprivation once they are born is far, far worse than childbirth! At least childbirth ends :D

It isn't a contest with a prize for 'best mother' (although there are plenty of women who act as if it is) nor is it a beauty contest.

Good luck!

I thought it was going to be constant torture it wasn't its hard I'm not going to lie but you can do it!

Thanks, I'm not at all adverse to pain relief and would take it if I needed it. I just know birthing plans don't always go to plan iyswim, I know I'm probably over thinking it but its just my nature, I'm fiercely proud (for my sins) and that's my main concern, I think its the fear of being so vulnerable and helpless more than anything. I know that is crazy!

I've suffered with insomnia for many years, hoping it has put me in food stead for sleep derivation!

No more OBEM for me though!

*good

It is hard and it is painful, but there are plenty of pain relief options available if you need them and you might surprise yourself. The pushing bit hurts but your body completely takes over and you just do it.

I felt like I carried on like a right drama queen but DP said I didn't at all and whenever we watch one born he comments that I didn't make that much fuss. Although even if you do scream and swear and beg for pain relief, who cares, you're in labour and what you'll most remember afterwards is how wonderful it was to hold your baby!

I agree that you shouldn't watch OBEM if it freaks you out, but just to say that I was advised not to watch anything like that and when I finally did I was relieved at how straight forward some of the deliveries were. I think I built a lot up in my mind and you know how some women love telling their horrific labour stories!! If you've seen one with a particularly difficult birth (I didn't watch the episode where I knew something very sad happened) then another one may be more calming/humourous/straight forward. Drama makes good telly but I look at it as my "homework" so to speak :)

Again, of course it's your choice, different strokes for different folks!

Hope you feel relaxed during your pregnancy no matter what!

If it makes you feel any better, I was on One Born Ar Christmas and they definitely managed to edit my labour for maximum dramatic effect. They showed very little of the easier part of my labour but virtually all of the transition stage. They also edited out the fact that I was never allocated a midwife and ended up with the co-ordinator being totally caught out and in a flap when we called for a midwife because I wanted to push. They didn't show any of the moments when I was being told not to push because there wasn't a cot in the room and the midwife didn't have her gloves on. They did, of course show me totally losing the plot, off my face on G&A and all of my screaming (I had never screamed during my previous two births when I had midwives in control and encouraging me through transition/pushing). None of the reality would have made great TV. Oh, and they did show the one and only moment when I got a little annoyed with DH.

So please, do not think that OBEM is the whole story or an accurate representation of the reality of birth. It is edited to make good TV. You will have your own, unique experience of giving birth and you have lots of choices available to you to cope with labour/birth.

Oooh how exciting Room! Can you tell us which one you were??

I gave birth in LGI in January. Had taped OBEM to watch after the birth as I knew it would be too scary before.

OP, I have a feeling you'll be just fine! You sound v sensible. It does make you vulnerable and helpless but you'll get over it. I felt it was a bit like when I've had terrible food poisoning, in that I kept thinking, this is awful, I want my mum. But then it passed a lot quicker than food poisoning and I didn't feel any different about myself afterwards. In fact you will likely feel proud just that you survived and gave birth to a lovely little child!

It's not like it is on telly Try watching Home Grown babies or Home Birth Diaries or youtube or my.birth.tv for some calmer, straightforward versions.

Don't watch obem I watched it after a very traumatic delivery on the post natal ward lol and it almost gave me post natal depression as someone had a similar experience to me on it....and I had a bad labour so I'm guessing they do only show the most scary deliveries on there....if you do want to watch labour look on YouTube but only search nice labour and delivery no point scaring yourself for no reason! As for worrying about being a drama queen I dont have the best pain threshold and decided I didn't even want to try and be brave I had my epidural up and running within 2 hours of being induced and had no pain ieven managed to sleep from it being started and got woke up by my midwife 7 hours later fully dilated.....