Were you scared beforehand and how did you remedy that?

[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!

[Loula]

I was so scared about being pg because of the fact that i would need to get the baby out and was so scared that my body would fail me, Death crossed my thoughts on many occasions.

I loved every minute of being pg and i loved my labour (not the way it ended but that was taken from me)

......now my fear is a VBAC incase of rupture (if we are blessed to concieve another child)

I need to learn how to truse my body again and believe in myself, (and i will be getting a private MW or Doula!)

[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.

[Shanti]

I wasn't scared before going into labour/birth. I informed myself by reading as much as I could here on BB and in good books. I also kept reminding myself that women have been having babies for thousands of years and it's totally natural, normal and beautiful. I also know that drugs were never around in the early days of giving birth so I thought if those women could do it drug-free, then surely I can?

I believed in my ability to birth my baby and if any fears did come up, I quickly vanished them with healthy affirmations that "yes I can do this". And any negative birth stories told to me (ie my mum loves telling me about how much it hurt her!!) I would ignore

DD was posterior and it bloody hurt, all 9.5hrs of it but I did it drug-free (no gas) because I believed I could do it without a doubt. I also had the right circumstances to allow me to do that so I feel very lucky. Although DD was posterior and pushing stage was 2.5hrs long and I tore 3rd degree, besides that pain, it was amazing LOL!!!!!

This time around, I feel the same way, very confident etc, not scared at all, HOWEVER I do have fear of tearing badly again and having a long pushing stage again because that was the HARDEST part!!! But I keep reminding myself I have done it before, this time should be easier

What helps me through labour and contractions, is I do alot of focusing (probably a bit of hypno birthing) on the 'waves' of the contraction and riding the waves until they go...... so when I was in labour as a contraction hit, I would pretend I was riding the wave and as it surged and I was at the top of the wave and it was so painful, I would then focus on coming off the wave and pictured the wave getting smaller and smaller as the pain went, it honestly truly helped me......I just went with my body and my mind at the time and TRUSTED it all...... I wasn't scared then. I don't believe you need to do hypo birthing or calm birth courses to know how to set your mind in the right frame either.....it's really not that hard.