I hate my sons birth and I'm terrified at 32 weeks pregnant! Please help!!

[Christine88]

I've really struggled with writing this and have at this point rewritten the introduction a fair few times! I feel like I have read every single blog which comes close to how I feel and yet I didn't have a traumatic labour ending in a crash cesarean or anything like that! I had a planned cesarean due to my son being breech, it was as textbook perfect as could be. Nice and calm, son came out pink and screaming, latched on and didn't move from the boob for quite a while! On paper perfect.

So why do I hate talking about it? Why does the thought of having to have another cesarean make me want to burst in to tears even if I'm talking about it in a hypothetical sense. I'm 32 weeks pregnant and painfully aware that in 8 weeks this baby is coming out one way or the other!

I can't even explain how I feel as I go from feeling so grateful that we live in a time when my son was delivered safely and perfectly and where minimal damage was done to me. Physically anyway!! To feeling like a huge failure who has no birth story and can't contribute to any birth story tales or take any sort of praise or anything!

I've recently found out that baby number 2 is head down so we're on track for a VBAC but how am I going to cope with these feelings resurfacing already! Also what if I get my VBAC and then I love number 2 more than my son! How awful does that sound, I love my son more than anything but what if it's not enough!

I'm so scared, sorry to rant!

It's hard but please don't worry, you aren't a failure because you had a c-section. It was the only way your baby could be born safely, it may not be a dramatic birth story but the birth is just the opening page to the story of your sons life; you have plenty of time to forge exciting stories together.

If your vbac goes to plan then brilliant, you've had both experiences; if not then you still have a beautiful newborn to snuggle and love. The method does not matter and your love will be no different.

I personally had an induction, a 26 hour labour and a emcs due to distress and wish my delivery had been calm and event free as yours as I was too out of it to bond with my baby immediately.

Congratulations and good luck

Gosh - you do sound anxious about it all! Look - it's donkeys since I had my DC and they're all grown up now and all I can tell you is this - not once, not ever has anyone enquired of me how they came into the world. The memory is all but faded and although my first wasn't a brilliant birth I was very very grateful to have at hand the expertise that ensured a healthy baby at the end of a pretty grim two days! So I don't think a 'birth story' is 100% necessary and I also don't think it's doing you any good at all fretting about all the what ifs before the event. Enjoy this time, enjoy your birth, what will be will be and afterwards you'll have a lovely baby and the birth will be a thing of the past which is really where it belongs!

I personally had an induction, a 26 hour labour and a emcs due to distress and wish my delivery had been calm and event free as yours as I was too out of it to bond with my baby immediatel

Similar, but with forceps and a badly bruised baby who looked like he'd done a few lively rounds with Mike Tyson! I could have mooned about it all for however long but there'd have been no point. Life is for living and about the future - not dwelling on the past!

Really don't worry about loving one child more than another. Mum of two here and one of my labours resulted in a torn perineum to the back passage and the other was a brutal long labour, finally resulting in instrumental delivery & retained placenta!! I found my first so upsetting I couldn't discuss it without crying for about 2 months. Whatever way our babies come into the world can upset us for so many reasons but they really do fade with time. I get angry when I hear yoga teachers or others working close to pregnant mums who make out like induction is awful and to be avoided or that c sections are unnecessary. In my experience, very few people get the textbook labour they aspire to, and that's part of the journey into motherhood. We toughen up. We learn to accept that we can't control things when it comes to babies. I'm going for ELCS this time as I was so freaked about another vaginal delivery. I am worried I'll have to endure a much tougher recovery. And you should take praise for what many consider to be a much more difficult and risky (for mum) route, you put your baby's needs first. Stand and be proud for that!

By the way I never associate the labour experience with the little person and it never interfered with my feelings for them. Don't worry!! Maybe try some Hypno cds to de-stress?

Oh but you do have birth story a lovely one your son was breech so you had a section of was calm but obviously left you a bit shaken that's your birth story, you don't need the blood and gore or the perfect birth to have a story.

My midwife told me on paper my sons birth wasn't traumatic even though it was hard they wouldn't class it as traumatic (forceps episiotomy and 2 second degree tears are totally normal ) but I can't think about it without crying even 4 years later 😞 I'm 23 weeks now planning a section this time but freak the fuck out at least 3 times a week about getting this baby out, but the mw has said if I found it traumatic it was traumatic no matter what happened its how you feel that is important. I'm going for counselling soon to try to lay my demons to rest before this baby comes.