Planning A Birth

When you are pregnant the first time, all the baby magazines, books and websites talk about your Birth Plan, as though it is something enshrined in law. While your midwife concentrates on various medical choices, which either horrify you or go straight over your head, the baby media remind you that you should pack incense and candles and soothing music. The reality of a first birth is usually some miles away from the happy ideal of the joyous birth plan. In fact, the birth plan is usually ignored. No pain relief sounds a noble thing indeed until the 36th hour of labour. No amount of Enya is going to stop you screaming like a banshee at some point. And that's fine.
I would argue that giving birth for the first time is inherently traumatic, regardless of how natural and beautiful it's supposed to be. It would certainly explain the vast numbers of women who speak of their first delivery in terms of awestruck horror. I certainly found my first birth traumatic, although most other women regard it with a mix of disdain and envy. Only four hours of labour? Lucky bitch. Yeah, four hours of labour is fine until you're going down the A47 at 80mph in the middle of the night, trying not to give birth in the front seat. That is less relaxing.
I was strongly advised to have a homebirth with my second baby. This was no problem for me: not only was my first birth traumatically fast, I also had an absolute shit time on the postnatal ward and was left in a very fragile mental state for six months. I blamed my postnatal depression mainly on my poor postnatal experience, and was scared it would happen again.
So, when the time came, I popped my middle boy out at home. I was considered low risk in comparison to the high risk of precipitate labour. As far as the labour and delivery went, it was beautiful and just like birth is SUPPOSED to be. Then it all went to shit.

I thought I was OK with my second birth. My baby was alive, somehow. I was alive and safe if a bit fucked up for a week, and I'd done it at home all by myself. It was a lot more controlled and easier to cope with than the first. I drew a line under it.

Or I thought I did, until I got pregnant again.
Initially, I thought I would have a homebirth. As pregnancy progressed, I realised that I was actually quite terrified of having another homebirth. They're great. They're lovely. They're amazing. Until they go wrong, and then they are SHIT. You have to hang around waiting for an ambulance, get dislodged from your comfy house to go and lie on a horrible hospital bed. And that's if you manage to get your baby out first - the idea of doing the same IN LABOUR fills me with horror.
My consultant got my notes from my old hospital, and said it would be a lot better if I had the baby on the consultant led unit so they can treat me immediately if I haemorrhage again.
And what upset me was not that the decision to have a homebirth was taken away, but that I no longer felt able to trust my body how to have a baby. I no longer WANTED to have a homebirth, and that felt very strange to me.

I've got 46 days to brew, give or take a fortnight. And I am dreading birth. I don't want to go into labour - not enough to be induced, which has been offered, but enough to already be second guessing my body's various twinges. I am scared of haemorrhaging again, scared of tearing, scared of everything. It sucks. I have never feared birth before, trusting wholly in my uterus to do what is expected of it, but now I am full of doubt. I sincerely hope that I am so sick of pregnancy that I welcome it by the end, because this anxiety is all new. It may be because I *know* this baby is my last, and I feel pressure to get it right, to minimise the curious feeling afterwards that I need to do it again to make it right.

There is no such thing as a perfect birth. There are only births that are good for the individual, and being realistic in your aims and expectations is the first step. I expect to give birth without pain relief - I have twice before. I expect to refuse induction unless the baby's distressed - I'm like that. I expect to be allowed to labour without monitoring or VEs - I've always laboured at home, so this might be a bit more of a stretch. I expect labour to be fast - if it's not, I shall be surprised! I am prepared to labour too fast to get assistance, which is part of the fear. I expect to haemorrhage, but I hope I won't. I expect to need surgical repair, but really hope I won't. I expect a big baby.
But that's all I expect. Everything else is too unpredictable to even think about trying to plan for.