Fear mongering

[Mrstobe90]

I went out with my husband and a few of our friends to see in the new year tonight. We obviously were sober (33 weeks pregnant) and as people in the pub got more drunk, they were coming up to me, asking when I’m due and telling me all about how horrific their births were, how it’s “the worst pain you’ll ever experience” and literally telling me every horror story you could think of.
Ended up leaving and now I’m in tears.
I’m already terrified and I’m doing hypnobirthing to try to help but this has knocked me back.

How do you all cope with nightmare birth stories? I’m really upset by it all.

My 2 both popped out in a few hours and it was absolutely fine. I had DS 11 days ago, he was born at 4am and we were home for lunch. There are just as many people who have easy births but they don't make such a good story in the pub.

Sharing your horrendous birth story is fine if the other person has already experienced birth. Doing it to a nervous first time mother is a horrid thing to do. When I was pregnant with my eldest child a woman at work suffered a horrible birth. I had to sit next to her and all she went on about was what happened to her. It scared me to death. I used to cry wondering what the bloody hell id done.

It’s not fair and people should keep a lid on it.

In all honesty don't listen to anyone's stories as each person is different due to their bodies, stress levels and how they handle uncertain situations.

Truths about childbirth.

Will it hurt - yes but pain relief is there and fast acting.

Will I be alone - not unless you want to be.

Can something go wrong - in honesty yes but that's why your delivery team have full support.

Trick about birth is keeping calm, listen to your body, relax when possible and listen to what people are saying even if it's just the doctor or midwife as they are the ones who are trained and know what needs to happen at any stage.

I'm no expert, just a mum who has gone through it but I refused to listen to people's stories as some people like stirring the shit pot like it's gods work.

Nobody is stirring the shit pot. Jesus, people are just a little thoughtless but it's the biggest trauma and biggest high most people have experienced in their lives. Are you really so shocked that the memories are fresh and come flying out when faced with a pregnant woman? It's about them, not you.

I disagree @itschristmoose. Scoffing at OP’s wish to have a home birth and saying “good luck with that” is stirring, pure and simple.

Just to let you know, I had the most traumatic of first births, it was horrendous and took me a very long time heal but I'm now on baby 4. I had so many complications but still had more children. Like others have said no one tells you when it goes well. So here goes.

My sister had 1hour and 19 minutes labour with her first, she had him at 3am and was home by 6pm, no stitches no pain relief nothing. 2nd she had a c section for medical reasons and she heals in record time and was back on her feet. Number 3 she didn't didn't even realise baby was on her way, she went to her ante natal appointment to have a sweep and her waters broke and her daughter was born 20 minutes later, numbers 4 and 5 were c section for breech momo twins again she was on her feet in no time.

Everyine will tell you horror stories bit sometimes labour and delivery isn't so bad, your body will tell you what you need. Good luck and keep up with your plans xx

I didn’t know these people. They were literally strangers coming up to me, asking about how long I have left and then telling me these things. I’d never met them in my life. I’ve been doing a lot of research on things that could potentially go wrong but I look at them from a medical point of view rather than a horror story.

Thank you so much everyone for replying and your kind words! As long as baby gets here happily and healthily, that’s all I care about. I’m just hoping that things go smoothly and are straight forward.

Two lovely women I worked with once a week both told me how the day they gave birth was wonderful and they'd love to do it again. So kind and positive. And I feel the same way - I had my son with gas and air, no epidural necessary. 12 hours from realising it wasn't Braxton Hicks to holding baby. It was painful but not extreme at all. It was a great experience really and I'd do it again tomorrow!!

Read Ina May Gaskin as an antidote to all those PITA who share horror stories!

I am currently pregnant with dc3 (well technically dc4, I lost a little boy at 22 weeks so this will be the fourth time I go through the birthing process).
Each birth was different and I do get irritated by women who tell these horror stories with no concern for the pregnant woman who may be overhearing them (this happened to me a few weeks ago and I wasn't even with this group of women they just happened to spot me and it seemed to trigger the subject and I remember thinking this would be awful to hear if I was going through birth for the first time).
To be honest, I was very naïve when I gave birth the first time and just imagined sitting in a birthing pool relaxing whilst intermittently reading magazines (and ideally sipping a cocktail whilst I waited). Afterward a friend who had given birth ahead of me then told me she had deliberately held back how painful it would be...but I did get through it on just gas and air. With the second birth I listened to a hypnobirthing CD in the run up to birth and found that it made a world of difference plus this birth was a lot quicker. The third I was naturally all over the place and now I am slowly psyching myself up again for the next birth (hopefully in March) and will be listening to a hypnobirthing CD again very shortly. The thing is no-one can really describe the pain until they have been through it...and there are so many variables...the effectiveness of pain relief etc. With both of my live births I used only gas and air...and I am still going back for more! although I won't lie after the complications of my loss and being older this time, I do feel anxious about the whole thing x Stiches both time but by this time I was high on adrenaline/hormones so honestly didn't care! The wonderful feeling you get of holding your newborn in your arms is indescribable and remember that the pain is a functional pain toward this x

In my experience, people who share their Horror Stories unprompted are the same people who complain about every little sniffle on social media, have self diagnosed themselves with OCD/ fibromyalgia/ Dengue Fever, but and then when they get pregnant, have The Most Difficult Pregnancy Ever.

Anyone I know in real life who has had a difficult birth is factual about what happened, but they don’t use their experience to frighten or intimidate a first time mum about to go through it herself.

Take everything they say with a pinch of salt- as some said further up the thread, hope for things to go as planned but be prepared for something to come out of left field.

My mil was the worst with scare stories whilst I was pregnant. Bloody moron. I also avoided one born every minute but binged on it after my first dd was born.

Remember that a birth that didn’t go to plan can also be good. I started with a water birth in the midwife unit, got out of the pool after 4 hours as I wasn’t progressing past 5cm. Laboured up to 10cm in the midwife unit but ended up being crashed and through to hospital as DS after pushing for ages and DS was dripping heart rate. Same building so just down the corridor which helped! Ended up having a spinal block and ventouse delivery in theatre BUT it was fine! All the end bit was super quick and it got DS out, the doctors were very good and kind and made me feel much better (as I was wailing I’d ‘failed’ and ‘done it all wrong’ a dr stroked my hand and told me they did this many times a day and it was normal and I was doing fine) and the next morning sitting in the hospital bed and looking at DS while I ate Rice Krispies, I felt really happy and looked after. Even non ‘ideal’ births that have intervention can be good births! I recovered quickly and I have fond memories of a lot of it. Whilst our bodies are ‘made to do it’, birth is also a difficult process and luckily we live in a time which means we have access to medical care to step in should anything happen. That’s a great thing. I know sometimes having to have medical intervention can be seen as something bad or a failure when you attend NCT, hypnobirthing classes etc.

I loved my daughter's birth as I knew I was getting induced and knew what was going where and when and what for and my birth plan was to assume the position and listen to consultant and midwife.

As for stirring the pot, we all know people or had that experience when someone will come up to us and regale us with their horror stories and put the fear of the wee man into you - that is what I don't listen too and I totally get why people would freak out about what they hear.

I'm wishing you all the best in labour and afterwards with your new baby and you will probably be sitting there once cleaned up eating the best toast and tea you will ever have having a laugh.

Yes, Gryffen, I remember the tea and toast bit; it did taste fantastic!

Bloody tea and toast! My mum raised me on that story of how amazing the tea and toast was after! It kept me going in the labour (not quite but..).

Fucking cheap rubber with a streak of marge on it with a watery cup of tea. I've had 3 babies, same every time.

I haven't my hospital bag packed yet but I've the picnic box out and ready to fill with food to bring in the next couple of weeks to hospital. I'm hoping to stop at M&S on the way!

I witnessed this conversation:
Subject of birth comes up
Pregnant lady: please don't tell me your birth story
Woman who had baby 15 years ago: spent 15 mins telling horrific birth story.
Pregnant lady: rolls eyes at me and carries on doing her tasks while pretending to listen.

If people tried to do it with me I just shouted 'stop, I'm in denial, stop talking I don't want to know' and it generally worked.

My birth was a planned c-section in the end and it was fab.

I found my whole pregnancy was like that and even now my baby is here people dwell on the negatives. 'You'll never sleep again' 'enjoy your freedom' 'wait till they start teething'. I never assumed any of it would be easy but the positives far out weigh the negatives but it was hard to have people dwell on the 'bad points' all of the time.

It's indescribable but people still try but compared to some of the toothache I've had I would be hard pressed to decide which I want less

Ok, do I'm a tree hugger, but this SO helped me. A friend taught me that when some vile person started on me with their horror stories, I had to visuals a waterfall between then and me. I thought " yea, right " but when I tried it, I felt the fear ebbing away. The thoughtless vindictive person would still be yapping away about pain and bleeding...... And I felt totally separate and serene.

I’ve loved reading all of your stories. It’s nice to know that people can still have positive birth experiences even when things do go wrong.

@Ohyesiam I will definitely try the waterfall technique thank you for sharing it with me.

The best thing about my births was my three children how they got here doesn't really matter

Yes I have a completely different idea of what constitutes a birth ‘going wrong’ now. Going wrong for me would have to mean excessive damage to myself or the baby or medical mistake/mismanagement or something much much worse than needing a ventouse and not having the planned waterbirth. It does hurt, it can be scary at times, things will sometimes not go to plan, you might feel a bit confused and things can happen very quickly if they need to but that is all within the range of normal I think, and I once DS was out I felt nothing but relief and gratefulness to the wonderful staff. I am planning to go to midwife unit to have another crack at a waterbirth with my second due later this year, my midwife is keen on a homebirth but honestly, I liked being in a somewhat medical setting!

I'm sorry that you had that horrible experience, OP, and it sounds like the people you encountered on NYE were twats.

However, pretty much every friend who has had a baby after me has, at some point in the early postnatal phase, asked me 'why didn't you tell me?'. My answer always is that their experience was never going to be comparable to mine as births are so different; that there was no point in frightening them; and that it wouldn't necessarily have sunk in anyway until they experienced it for themselves.

There are a lot of new mothers who feel very betrayed by a conspiracy of silence around many of the realities of birth. There must be a happy medium between honest discussion of childbirth (including good-quality aftercare for mothers) and the fear mongering that you encountered.

A friend of mine went on and on about how horrendous her birth was, and then that she hoped she had not put me off. I went in expecting something equally traumatic, my birth however went so quickly the midwife and doctor were both surprised it was my first. Yeah it did hurt, but I forgot all the pain the moment I saw the baby. If anyone ever asks, I would prefer to talk about what helped me through it rather than scare people with the pain.
The one good thing from scary stories was that another friend went through a traumatic and extremely complex birth, and she said the care she received was amazing. And this helped me chose our hospital, as I was more confident that if things dont ho to plan, we will be in good hands.

If you look at a lot of threads on MN there are plenty of “why did no one prepare me” threads as well as ones like this actually, it is interesting how people have different experiences. Similar with the newborn days with a baby, some people are truly stunned by the realities and say they were never told it would be so hard, whereas I had read plenty on threads and blogs talking about how bloody hard it could be I honestly had geared myself up to live in utter hell for months. As it was, it was like the birth, there were good moments and overall I would do it again (I am doing it again!) I coped well but it was of course hard. It didn’t break me! Like birth stories, there needs to be more in the middle. Less of the “hypnobirthing meant I didn’t feel a twinge and I sang songs and the baby floated out of me into my arms with one push” as well as horror stories perhaps.