**Carebear** and others who are feeling uneasy about L&D

vera1127

I was just browsing through posts from today and this one caught my eye. If I were a betting woman, I would have said I was the most nervous person in the world about having my baby. I just wanted to tell you some things that I did that made the process go much smoother for me. I'm really not a "focus your energy" kind of person, but I found myself forcing it this time. I was really really trying to just keep a calm energy around me. I asked  A LOT of questions about what the nurses were doing, what numbers on the screens meant, etc. I also found that listening to the fetal heart monitor helped quite a bit during my labor. Some nurses kept trying to turn it down so it wouldn't bother me, but I told them that I like hearing it as it helped me to keep my cool. I had a long and difficult labor, but really never felt scared. Be your own advocate, but try to stay relaxed doing whatever works for you--I played games on my laptop, watched TV, even tried taking a nap (epidurals are amazing). My nurse even commented on how well I was handling my nervousness! Just keeping the attitude that you don't know what's going to happen or how things will play out, but that you CAN handle it is the best thing to do. 

Mrs. Diss

Thank you for that. I'm really scared.

Nicholas is beautiful by the way!

Gem17

Thanks for the great advice!  It really puts things in perspective and shows that we CAN do it and we WILL survive (which is what I keep telling myself!).  Congrats again on your little one!

CareBear2005

Thank you!! I appreciate the words of reassurance!

luckyangel

I'm surprisingly not scared.