Blimey this whole situation seems to be a minefield......if you are genuinely scared of birth but are maybe willing to consider a homebirth then you're stuffed. Because then if later they say you can't have one then you're being forced to have the hospital birth you are terrified of?! And you can't then argue for a CS? So you're best off to fight for it then step back if you change your mind?!
It's terrible we have so little control over the most scary thing we can go through. Madness!!
You are completely wrong.
Women who have homebirths often have common reasons for making that decision to women who want ELCS. There is less of a contradiction than you might think. A good midwife will understand this and will know there is an overlap.
Indeed when I got my ELCS agreed, I was told the midwives were happier agreeing to one, than risk a patient trying to give birth at home alone (without a midwife present) because of their underlying fears of consent. Apparently women who are denied an ELCS and feel 'forced' into a VB are at risk of attempting unattended homebirths.
I read a lot of posts about wanting an ELCS, and post on a lot of them. Everyone is slightly different, and has different emphasis about what is most important to the poster. What strikes me about yours is that the heart of your post is not that you desperately want an ELCS, its about central issues relating to trust and consent.
Your fear is not the medical intervention. Your fear is medical intervention without your consent or medical intervention you feel you have been coerced into.
Your fear is based on being afraid you will not be listened to and will loose control of being able to make decisions.
Yes there are, unfortunately, people and professionals who don't get this though, so how you articulate what your fear is, is very important.
Stress the heart of your fears. Frame it like that from the word go and this hopefully with set up a situation you can have a conversation about ELCS v HB (one with a midwife!).
The argument you will come up against and have to counter is the one about the fact you can not control your birth as things can 'just happen'. Again how you respond to that is important - you need to feel like you are being properly involved in your care rather than a spectator to it.
Which ever way you go it ultimately relies on you having built up trust with your care givers. And that's where counselling and contact & communication with your care givers might well come in. This need not be 'counselling' in the sense you mean either. Just talking to your midwife could be a form of counselling and be enough for your needs. If you are given the opportunity to do that, you might feel differently about a VB in a hospital setting too.
One of the leading midwives in the country on birth fear advocates allowing women to be granted ELCS early for this reason - precisely because it immediately creates a situation in which women who feel their fears won't be taken seriously have been listened to very early on. It gives a starting point where the relationship between midwives and the woman can be built upon. In his experience he found that if this happened, women often did change their minds as they felt they could go ahead with a VB, often with a robust birth plan and clear instructions ahead of time on what happened in certain scenarios they were most concerned about. (eg at first sign of trouble, a CS would be an early option rather than more of a wait and see strategy).
Its never too early to have this conversation with HCPs. If its causing you particular anxiety, do it early - give yourself the maximum opportunity and time to build trust up. You are not being difficult or over sensitive, you are dealing with a medical issue - anxiety.
Good luck whatever you do.