For some mamas-to-be, the prospect of giving birth (while it may be one of the most natural things in the world) can be terrifying.
A lot of the fear comes from the unknown, and simply hearing too many scary stories that involve babies being born with big heads or rips, tears... well, you get the message.
But with a little bit of sound advice, you can feel a lot better.
And the best person to seek advice from? Well, that would be your own mother, of course.
In fact, one mum, who was a little worried about her labour and delivery, took to Reddit after her mother gave her some pretty sound advice - and it's good. Really good.
"Not due until October, but currently taking a prenatal class with my husband because the next one isn't offered until September which is a bit closer to my due date than we're comfortable with," user Mrs Meredith wrote.
She then goes on to list the things that were "freaking" her out:
- Getting an epidural
- Not getting an epidural
- Caesarean birth
- Vaginal birth
- Being in a rural community where there's a good chance her husband will be over an hour away when she go into labour
- Fentanyl as a drug used in hospital during labour and delivery
- Not really being sure about what choices she's actually going to have when it comes time
- 6/7 mums she know in the community delivered by caesarean
- Being in a rural community where the availability of certain interventions depends entirely on not just having a doctor available with the right skills but also enough nurses available to keep the right ratio for monitoring
- Getting a catheter if she has an epidural
- Baby having a gigantic head
- Germs being everywhere
So what does Mrs Meredith do? She calls her mum - and from her post, it is the best thing she ever did.
"Spent the afternoon on the phone with my mum," she continued.
"She's the best. Basically reassured me that everything will be OK and pointed out the positive aspects of being in a rural community that I was totally missing.
"1. You broke your foot and never knew until you broke it a second time years later and it showed how the first break healed on the X-ray. When you broke it the second time you made so little noise that only the people immediately in front of us and immediately behind knew anything was wrong. You have dislocated your shoulder three times and been concussed twice that we know of and in every case you were hurt significantly worse than they expected based on your pain reporting. I strongly suspect you have a higher pain tolerance than most people. You might want some drugs and that's OK, but if you can't get them for whatever reason you're going to be fine.
"2. Fentanyl on the street is not the same as Fentanyl in the hospital. The hospital stuff is measured and dosed and not being cut with anything else that could change the reaction or pollute it.
"3. Yes, you're a small person but relative to your size you have good hips for babies. I'm sorry because your pants might never fit again, but you have your grandma's and my hips. She had five, I had five, neither of us ever needed a caesarean.
"4. What you're describing about those other women having C-sections all sound like medically necessary ones which probably won't happen for you because you have good hips and baby is measuring normal, and [husband] is tall and skinny and most of our side is pretty thin. Genetics are on your side.
"5. You can ask his office to schedule him close to home as much as possible the month of the birth, and if he is away somewhere you just call his office and they'll be able to get a message to the judge to wrap things up or adjourn court as needed.
"6. The first part of labour isn't bad and you won't mind being on your own. If you need someone there, you can call his office manager and she'll come sit with you until he can be there.
"7. You live in a small town so you can stay at home longer than if you had traffic to deal with. It takes seven minutes to get from your house to the hospital if you get both red lights and you've told me about how easy it is to avoid those intersections entirely.
"8. When you get a catheter to pee it doesn't hurt because you're already frozen and then it's nice because you don't have to get up to pee every hour.
"9. There's not as many choices as people make it sound like. You choose what kind of pain management you want, but beyond that they're not going to do anything not in you and baby's best interests and [husband] will be there to stay on top of it.
"10. You don't have to invite your anti-vaxx sister-in-law to visit the day baby is born. You can ask her and the nephews to wait until a few weeks, and it's not unreasonable to get EVERYONE to wash their hands.
"11. [Husband] got his vaccines updated last week and you know when yours will be done. By the time you're travelling here for Christmas baby will have their first set of shots, even if they're born late and your Dad and I will send your sisters to stay with friends if they have so much as a sniffle the week before you come.
"She's the best. I feel so much better."
What wonderful advice - something you just need someone to clear the fog from your head so you can see clearly.
