Paralyzed by The Fear of Childbirth!

What fear has taken hold of your thinking process today…………………?

Thoughts start racing through your mind: stories you have heard about painful labor that took days to produce a baby; being tied down to care for a helpless infant or toddler; school fees for many years to come; disciplining a wayward child … … And although it all starts there, fear can go beyond these initial thoughts if you let it. Your fear and anxiety doesn’t seem to end and you’re in a crisis.

If you allow yourself to dwell on negative thinking, even the most sober, married woman can spiral into panic and seek out an abortion clinic to end her obsessing fear. But has the problem really been resolved?

A wise doctor looks beyond a patient’s presenting symptoms. What has caused those symptoms to appear is more important for healing and long-term health. The same goes for emotional symptoms. Fear has a myriad of core starting points. One common central source of fear is our learned response to the unknown.

I say “learned response” because none of us know what is going to happen in the next 24 hours. We are the only creature that has the capability of thinking into the future, and how we respond to thoughts of tomorrow is learned as we go through life. Even the lowly ant does not store up food because it thinks a drought is coming like it did last year – No! Its DNA says an ant is a gatherer, so that is what it does very automatically and instinctively. Humans, on the other hand, are able to think through a problem and solve it in the mind before setting their hand to the task.

So when we are faced with an unknown (in this case life with a first-time baby), we start mulling questions over in our mind: will I be able to cope with labour, will I be a good parent, how will my parents take this (if I’m not married), how will my husband take this (if he’s still in school or we were planning to wait another two years before starting our family) … the questions start building. If we have learned that the unknown has painful aspects waiting for us around the corner, fear and anxiety start to build. On the other hand if we have discovered that the unknown is an opportunity for growth and learning, we will encourage ourselves and enter into the future, one step at a time.

You say, easier said than done! Yes, I agree. No person alive today has avoided the experience of painful situations. The point I’m making is that your tomorrow does NOT have to be like your yesterday. We learn from our mistakes, and we can have hope that tomorrow is another day and we will rise above our negative circumstances.

As a Christian, we know Who holds our future. Did this pregnancy take God by surprise? No – He knew. And He also knows the outcome and will give you the grace to go through whatever may come your way. If childbirth were really so fearsome, our parents and grandparents would surely have stopped having children after the first one!

What fear has taken hold of your thinking process today? Could it be unemployment, uncertain economic times, illness, death of a loved one, or pending birth of a baby? I want to encourage you to take these fears and worries and place them in God’s very capable hands. He WILL see you through. Trust Him with your tomorrows. Think through these acronyms (FEAR & TRUST):

False Truth (of God’s love)
Evidence vs. Revealed
Appearing Undergirds
Real Strength for Today

Think about it!

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