Surely, you must be joking.....no, I'm not, and stop calling me Shirley.

For the first time today, I felt something new regarding my impending baby delivery--it was excitement, it wasn't exhaustion, it wasn't glee--it was fear.

Amazingly, I haven't been too worried about the actual giving birth. I figure hundreds of thousands of women around the world do it everyday, and if they can all do it, why shouldn't I be able to do it?

But then I read this thing, where these women told horror stories about birth-giving, words I didn't know before or fully understand like back labor, labor down, and descriptions of pain I never considered before, including pain so horrific that women lost control of their bodily functions and pooped all over the delivery room floor.

Now come on people, that's a lot of pain. I've never felt pain so bad that I actually lost control of my bodily functions. That's a whole new level of pain. I didn't know it was that bad.

I used to think that a vaginal delivery was what I wanted, and that it was better for everyone involved. But now, I don't know. My mom spent a long time on the phone convincing me to ignore the scary stuff, stop reading it, and that a vaginal delivery was STILL better, for both mom and baby, and that vaginal deliveries encourage your milk to come in, and they encourage the baby to start breathing on their own, and that you heal a lot faster from a vaginal delivery.

Incidentally, one woman said that she stood for days after her vaginal birth, because her tearing and swollen genital area made it too painful to sit down.

Then my mom assured me that I would be fine, and that she was fine, and that she had back labor, and it was no big deal. She said she just had my dad push on her back during the contractions to help with the pain, and then it was all over with and she had a baby. And not to worry about the tearing and the awfulness, because if I have an episiotomy, it'll be fine, I won't tear. Then she told me that I had nothing to worry about really, because people like her and like me, we were BORN to give birth, nice big bone structures, and high tolerances for pain, and she knows I have a high pain tolerance, so she suspects that even if there is pain, I'll do just fine. She also suggested that there's not a lot of pain, just mostly really strong pressure.

Yeah, really strong pressure that results in loss of control of bodily functions. Awesome.

I asked her why she never mentioned back labor before--and she told me that it just wasn't even worth mentioning, because it was no big deal. Then she told me that if possible, unless there is something wrong with the baby, I should not have a c-section. She told me that if everything is progressing well, it's just taking a long time, then the best thing to do is just wait. If there is something wrong and I have to have a c-section, then that's what will have to happen. But honestly, she says vaginal delivery is really the best.

There were no scary stories about c-sections, fyi. At least not any so horrifying that they are burned into my mind. Not yet, anyhow.

Then she told me that because I work out a lot, that my labor will probably be a piece of cake, because she heard that women who exercise or are in really good shape have really easy labor and deliveries.

I read in another book that that doesn't make a difference, but ok.

Anyhow, just to get her to stop talking about it, I told her she convinced me and I feel better, thanks.

But I really just feel scared. I guess it's good that I know now, right? Does anyone have any words of advice that aren't scary, or refute any of the scariness I mentioned? I would love someone to say "It's all lies! All that bad stuff, all lies!"

My mom didn't actually say it was all lies.