Birth Story

Emma - My elective C section

Hi all I hope that everyone is well. Finally, after weeks of trying to get my fears across and sorting out my own head I have been given a date for my elective C-section which is the 22nd of may 2007 yay.

I cannot wait for the first time since I found out I was pregnant I am a little bit looking forward to having this baby. I wanted to post this on here as I thought that it might help other people in a similar situation to know that they are not alone and that they must do what they feel comfortable with.

I have had a very bad experience with anything gynaecological, baby orientated and birth related. Firstly, my poor mum had four stillbirths via a natural birth, which resulted in a nervous breakdown. I was never told anything about this it was an aunty who told me. My mum could never face talking about it. This messed my head up as I was 14 when my aunty told me and she didn't know the full story with all the ins and outs and being so young and naive I just made up my own images and reasons for why it happened and automatically associated anything to do with natural birth as dangerous!

Then there was the now banned (thank god) childcare videos at school, which showed child, birth in very out of date, awful, painful way, which I think started my phobia. The videos were awful they showed women giving birth, but not just the straightforward births it showed births with complications such as the woman tearing really badly and they were awful.

My view on childbirth was very negative. All my life I had avoided babies I hated them! I would never go near any of my relative's babies until they were toddlers or past the age of about two. I am not sure why this was. My psychiatrist suggested that it is due to my obsession with babies dying and my phobia of a baby-dying while in my care. (Due to what my mum went through).

I also viewed childbirth as a form of violation and I just couldn't get my head around how I was going to love something that has been born via my private bits. I knew that I was already going to have problems with the baby once she is born as I am so obsessed that she is going to die or be ill that I just couldn't risk having a natural birth and rejecting the baby because I feel so dirty and like I had been raped after she is born.

I know that a C-section is best for me as I want the whole birthing experience to be detached and I want little to do with the birth of my baby. I hope no one thinks that I am being a bad mother because I will love this baby so much I just have too many issues surrounding childbirth to face it. It's mad but I am that convinced that something might happen to this baby that I feel that if anything did happen I could cope with it better as it would be controlled and detached.

I can imagine that this message may seem very weird and strange to people. I have tried to be as honest as I can with how I feel so that other people that might have what they think are strange embarrassing or weird feeling feel better and know they are not alone. I will send another post as soon as I experience something I think is relevant or after the baby is born to let others know how it went. I hope that this has put others minds at rest.