Child Birth and my Fears

Children they say are free gifts from God the Bible says so, they are free gifts then why do some people have to pay in some kind of way when they want to receive this gift? This is one question that always pops in my head but who am I to question God?

The Tragic Incident

I lost my mum at age six during childbirth. She died while giving birth to my brother and trust me my life has never remained the same after this heart shattering incident. First it started with me hating my brother, I still couldn’t process everything that was going on around me. I blamed him for killing my mum, I couldn’t imagine how a tiny creature could kill an adult. “couldn’t they have just saved her and let the baby go?” “She can always give us another baby” my young mind thought. How my young, strong and vibrant mother who left for the hospital and promised to come back with another baby for us to play with turned out to be a nightmare was one shock my six year old brain could not absorb.

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Then comes the fear

I freak out whenever any of my friend is pregnant or anybody at all that I know. in my head I just want the baby to come out ASAP, like that is even possible 😂😂 but yeah you really can’t blame me but deep down I really wish it was possible tho, like let’s just do this and get over with it. No woman has to die while bringing another human being into into this world, that’s a very sad and wrong thing to happen to anybody. Why go through the stress of carrying a baby for nine months only to die at the end, in yourba parlance ‘ o wrong gan’.

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“Please don’t call me when you are in labour” a lot of my friends and family members would always laugh at this statement.
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“You no get mind as you dey like this”(in Nigerian Pidgin)
To them it’s my feeble heart speaking but to me it is way more than that.
I tend to overthink a lot whenever a woman is due for delivery
“How will it go?”
“Is she going to give birth the normal way or through Caesarean Section?”
“Is the baby too big for her?”
“Will she bleed afterwards?”
“If anything happens who will take care of the child?”
These and many more are the things that always go through my mind, as much as we don’t have to think about negative things I cannot help but think about the worst case scenarios, is that a bad thing? Yes I know and I am working on it, whether I like it or not I will give birth someday, I will carry my baby in my womb and just like the Holy Bible says ‘I will give birth like the Hebrew women’ so help me God🙏

Once the baby is born, trust me I rejoice more than anybody cause I cannot imagine what went down in the labour room.

I love child namings and dedications more than anything, you can never see me going to any of these two events unprepared, I always go prepared with a tangible gift along side🥳🥳 remember in my introductory post I pointed out that I love children , part of why I love them is as a result of their birth process.

_{Baby Uriel🥰🥰}

Tokophobia

I later realized I was tokophobic yeah I never knew that word existed till a friend of mine was trying to advise me and she told me about the word. Tokophobia is the fear of childbirth and we have primary and secondary Tokophobia. Primary tokophobia is the dread of childbirth which starts early in a girl’s life as a result of fear of labour or scary stories of pregnancies or childbirth by people. Secondary tokophobia on the other hand is as a result of traumatic events in previous pregnancies, such as stillbirth, miscarriage, painful labour from previous pregnancies etc.
Apparently my friend was tokophobic before she gave birth to her first child, she had to go through intense counseling until she was mentally sound to have a child and lo and behold she gave birth safely to her princess. My friend’s story inspired me and I eventually had the balls to open up to her, I was so glad to finally find someone who could also relate to this my condition and Viola it worked!

My friend Cynthia took her time to make me understand that it was quite normal to feel the way I was feeling towards childbirth but it would be wrong not to give my unborn child a chance. In my journey of overcoming tokophobia I have learnt to shut out the bad stories I was told by my aunt about my mum during childbirth, my friend also made me understand that everyone’s destiny is not the same, just because something bad happened to my mum doesn’t mean I would go through that same path and trust me that has been helping me till date.

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I am happy my brother survived, he is my No.1 fan😎😎 I just can’t imagine a world without him in it, some have two, others have three but I have just one and I am super content😃.

_{My brother in whom I am well pleased}

I am gathering my acts together, I know I am not totally there yet but hey, I am way better than before, I am less scared of getting pregnant and with the way I am progressing before I get married and think of having children I know I would be super ready🥰.

Can you relate?
Ever lost someone due to childbirth?
How did you take it?, how did you eventually heal?
Let me know in the comment section

Loads of love🥰🥰