Were you scared beforehand and how did you remedy that?

[thepixie]

As for how I remedied the fear I guess the answer is I didn't. That might be something to do with why I went so far overdue. It wasn't just fear of labour either, I was scared because everything was going to change. I kind of realised that when I was having acupuncture at 41+5. It just hit me that I had to allow things to change. With labour I just had to accept that I was afraid, but it was going to happen anyway. And Juju helped too.

[Arcadia]

Here's the poem I mentioned. Its from a book based on the wives and daughters of Jacob (as in the biblical Jacob, whose most famous son is Joseph).

“Song of birth”
The Red Tent Anita Diamant, p. 298

Fear not, the time is coming
Fear not, your bones are strong
Fear not, help is nearby
Fear not, Gula is near
Fear not, the baby is at the door
Fear not, he will live to bring you honour
Fear not, the hands of the midwife are clever
Fear not, the earth is beneath you
Fear not, we have water and salt
Fear not, little mother
Fear not, mother of us all

[~clover~]

I've had fears every time.

With DD1 I was young & had no idea. The thought of how this baby was going to come out never occured to me til I was 6 months.
But even then, its hard to really fear something you don't know iykwim? I was more scared of tearing/episiotomy & stitches! When they dragged over the trolley for cutting the cord I shiite & said 'you're not gonna cut me are you?'

Second time around it hit early on. That I'd have to do that again... But second time around I dealt with the pain of labour so much better.
I knew what I needed to do to get through it & out of all 4, it was the best labour in every way.

Third & fourth time I wasn't so worried. I'd been there 2 & 3 times already, I had no worries at all that I could do it again.
With DD3 though, I was terrified of a c/s. Its always been in the back of my mind that it could happen, but with her I was petrified that it might actually happen.

I've been lucky enough to have no major tearing & no stitches & I'm thankful coz they were my biggest fears!
Knoweledge is power. The more I knew, the less I feared it. I wasn't even worried about the possibility of an accidental home birth!

[Visitor7]

I have been scared with all 3 about giving birth. Not the actual labour part, I knew I could handle that, but the actual giving birth part scared me. I didn't have the confidence to believe in myself. Even when birthing DD3, I think because it happened so quick (8cm - delivery was 2 minutes), I didn't even get a chance to realise that I could do it on my own. I would have loved to have had a homebirth, but I was too scared of the birth.