Extremely scared to give birth- 35+3

[Jsucks44]

Please help:( I'm really scared to give birth, I'm only 20 but it seems like every other woman I know has told me that it's the worst pain I'll ever feel (except my midwife who told me when I had a tooth abcess that the tooth pain was way worse) don't know what to do now really each time I have a small pain or ache I burst into tears thinking it could be time. Tbh I think DP must be so sick of me worrying now too.

I’ve had the hot end of a cigarette go into my eyeball. That’s definitely worse than childbirth.

OP, with my first baby I didn’t fancy being in excruciating pain either.
So I wasn’t.

I put “EPIDURAL EPIDURAL EPIDURAL”
on my labour notes as my ‘birth plan.’

When I was at 5cm they said “are you sure you want an epidural? You’re coping very well.” I was coping well, but I wanted it to bloody stay that way, so yes I want a poxy epidural!

Then I just lay there pain free and he was born. Easy peasy!

Funnily enough I had no pain relief with my second and will do the same with my third.

My point is if you want all the pain to go, you have a significant amount of control over this. So just say so. Start saying now and keep saying so. Being 20 doesn’t make a jot of difference by the way. It still hurts.

It's normal to worry but it'll be fine. It's a hard pain to describe, mostly because we forget as soon as baby is born. But it feels like a worthwhile pain, even when it's happening. None of us know how we're going to get through it, but we all do. There's pain relief if you want it - there are no medals for doing it without. The best advice I was given was to relax my jaw/shoulders because if they were tensed so was the rest of me - which won't help with the pain. FWIW, both my previous labours were short and manageable. Lots of my friends were the same - that's not the same as pain-free I should point out, but manageable. You can do this.

Oh and years ago I suffered from sciatica, I'd say that was worse.

I would ask for an epidural. There aren't medals for withstanding pain!

Another one to say that an epidural literally takes away all the pain. I was napping at 10cm dilated whilst waiting to start pushing. Couldn't feel a thing. About 5 pushes later he was out. Surreal!

As others have said, there are painkillers and epidurals so if the pain is too much, you have options! I think because it isn't constant you cope with it, and when you can't, take everything on offer! You can do this xx

I always looked on it with the thought that if it were so dreadful that no one would ever have more than one child. Does that help? I have 5 children. Gas and air was great.

Worst pain I've ever had was Gallstones and toothache.

Labour was fine, survived on Gas and Air and one dose of Diamorphine - that shit really works lol

Your best friend in labour is staying calm and listening to your body and being adaptable to the situation as it changes.

I gave birth a month ago. Planned an all natural birth but the moment they told me they were going to induce me (long story), my whole experience became very medical (throwing my entire birth plan out of the window) and I ended up opting for epidural because I was so scared of the way that being induced makes the pain go from 1-100 very quickly. I was induced by the time I was already having very intense contractions. The epidural made the experience go from "wow, that's a lot of pain!!!" To "meh, this is totally manageable". Epidural also makes it so that you can sleep through a good few hours worth of contractions, cutting out a lot of the process.

Moral of the story: epidural exists.

I broke a toe once, not even the big one... just the middle one.

My first baby was a 58 hour labour, I used gas and air, and I tore a little bit at the crowning.

I’m now pregnant again (my third) and hope with everything I have that I never break another toe ever again, as labour is far preferable!!

You’ll be fine 😊

Also, epidurals scare the shit out of me!! I don’t know how people seem to opt for them so easily 😬

Gas and air really is amazing stuff.