I am 5 weeks away from having my second and it has just started to dawn on me that I have to go through labour again. I am sh*tting myself! Things didn't go the way I had hoped with my last labour, I was induced at 38 weeks as I had high blood pressure, baby was posterior throughout the whole labour (So I had all the pain in my back which was a nightmare) and because of her position I couldn't push her out and ended up with an episiotomy and forceps. The pain from the stitches for weeks after was horrendous.

This time I am going to be more open to having an epidural early - particularly if the baby is posterior as well - last time I had the epidural just as I was about to push so I had gone through pretty much the whole labour in agony. I have also written a birth plan focusing mostly on communication between myself/midwives/docs - last time nobody told me the baby was posterior until she was stuck and had to be pulled out. I was also not even told that I was experiencing labour pains till I was already 5cm...I went for about 10 hours in labour but was told I was just having a normal reaction to the hormones used on my cervix to induce me.

Anyway, so I am going in to it this time a bit more in control of what I want and expect and a little less naive but I am still very worried and not looking forward to it at all.

I have had quite a few complications this pregnancy, not very serious, but enough to make me worry more. I have had very low blood sugar levels for the past few weeks which have resulted in hypoglycemic episodes - My arm, face and tongue go tingly, then numb and I get blurred vision and sometimes a headache with them. I am going through tests at the moment to find out if there is an underlying cause, the docs have said low blood sugar is quite unusual to this extent during pregnancy and have said I will likely need to be on a glucose drip throughout labour. I have also tested positive for Strep B this time, I didn't last time, so will be put on antibiotics as soon as my waters have broken.
I have also been told due to my blood sugar etc and my blood pressure issues during my last pregnancy I am probably likely to develop pre eclampsia.

These things are playing on my mind and making me already think that I am not going to have any chance of getting the labour I have been hoping for.

Any advice? I just need some encouragement I think