I Was So Afraid of Giving Birth, I Avoided Preparing for It

I think it’s incredibly natural to avoid thinking about actual labor and birth.

I mean, with all of the garbage birth scenes we see on TV and in movies, why would any woman feel excited to think about pushing a baby out of her body?

I know I wasn’t.Actually, quite the opposite.

I was so confused by my feelings around birth and labor that, for a while, I avoided birth preparation altogether.

I had a stack of books waiting to be read. Birth stories beautifully told in Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth sat untouched beside me.

UNREAD.

I think part of me believed that if I opened one of those books, I’d have to face the reality that there was no turning back.

Somehow, one way or another, I was going to have to bring this baby earthside.

Out of my body.

And typically speaking, there would be contractions and pain and pushing involved. And if TV and movies were even remotely accurate, the whole experience would be emergent, chaotic and utterly excruciating.

Nope.

Not thinking about it seemed easier.

Avoiding Birth Because You're Afraid of It- Is not uncommon. 

Looking back, I can see what I was doing.

I wasn't uninterested in birth preparation. I was afraid of giving birth, and avoidance was one way of protecting myself from having to feel that fear.

Because sometimes learning about the thing we're afraid of makes it feel more real.

If you're pregnant and you've found yourself avoiding the birth books, skipping the labor chapters, or thinking, I'll deal with that part later, I understand.

But something shifted for me late in my first trimester. I decided to face my fear. And I opened my first birth book.

The More I Learned About Birth, the Less Scary It Became. I was entranced.

There was so much I didn't know about birth.

Wait… a placenta?

You're telling me my body is growing an entirely new organ?

How had no one ever mentioned this before?

And then I learned you actually birth this organ after the baby.

They certainly don't show that part on TV.

The more I read, the more I realized how little I had actually been taught about pregnancy, labor and the physiology of birth.

And strangely, learning more didn't make birth scarier.

It started making it less scary.

The unknown began to have names. Processes. Explanations.

My body wasn't simply going to descend into some chaotic medical emergency like I'd seen on television.

There was physiology behind birth.

There were hormones involved. Instinct. Movement. Breath. The nervous system. The environment around us.

There were things I could learn. There were ways I could prepare.

And somewhere along the way, my desire to avoid birth began turning into curiosity.

Then curiosity became knowledge.

And knowledge began creating something I hadn't expected:

TRUST.

Not a guarantee that birth would unfold exactly the way I wanted it to.

But a deeper trust in my body, in the process, and in my ability to meet whatever came.

If You're Scared of Giving Birth. You don't have to force yourself to suddenly feel fearless. You don't even have to feel excited about labor.

Maybe the first step is simply becoming willing to look at the thing you've been avoiding.

Read one chapter.

Learn one thing about how your body works.

Ask the question you've been afraid to ask.

Birth preparation doesn't have to be about controlling your birth or creating the "perfect" birth experience.

It can simply be a way of replacing some of the unknown with understanding — and slowly creating a little more trust in yourself along the way.

That shift became a huge part of my own journey and, eventually, part of why I created Sacred Birth: Mini Course to help women prepare for birth not only with information, but through the body, the nervous system, intuition, breath and a deeper connection to themselves.

Because preparing for birth isn't about eliminating fear.

Sometimes it's simply about becoming curious enough to stop looking away.