I had an extreme fear of crushing my baby during birth

Jen Soriano, 47, an author, lives in Seattle with husband Juan and their son, who is now 10. Here, Jen shares what it means to have tokophobia, a severe fear of pregnancy and giving birth…

I’ve never felt my biological clock ticking or had a strong urge to have a baby. When I first met my now husband Juan, we did talk about having children one day, but I’ve lived with a chronic illness since I was 14, which makes me feel constantly tired, and have aches and pains all over my body, so I wasn’t sure if I could cope with pregnancy and motherhood on top of that.

But after trying a range of different therapies – everything from chiropractic treatment to acupuncture – my symptoms gradually improved. Juan also reassured me that he’d help me every step of the way if we had a child, so I began to feel I did have the mental strength to become a parent after all.

My physical challenges weren’t the only thing that’d been holding me back from motherhood though. I’d always had an underlying fear of pregnancy and how it might add to my chronic pain, so when I did become pregnant those worries morphed into something much bigger – an extreme fear of pregnancy and childbirth which I now know is called ‘tokophobia’.

There aren’t many studies on the condition, but according to research, as many as 14% of pregnant women could be affected by it. Having gone through it, I hate the thought of others having to navigate these feelings alone.

Delusional thoughts

My fears were so intense that when I first got pregnant, I started experiencing unusual thoughts about the baby, which I now recognise as delusions. I became preoccupied with a strange idea that the baby growing inside me was going to somehow consume every part of me.

I think these fears developed for a couple of different reasons. The first was that because my illness causes fatigue, I was afraid of the energy it would take to grow a baby. I felt as though the baby would zap all my strength, leaving me with no energy to function in daily life.

The second reason was that I had to conceive through IVF as I had adhesions on my fallopian tubes. Because of this, I was scared that a growing baby would make it worse and cause me even more pain.

I was also dreading the actual birth, my mind spinning with worries such as, 'What if the baby's head gets crushed while I'm pushing it out?' and 'What if my body completely shuts down during the birth and the baby gets stuck?'

I also started to develop strong feelings of disgust. They weren’t the normal pregnancy stories of morning sickness, or certain foods making you feel nauseous, it was more that I felt vulnerable.

The thought of someone giving up their bus seat for me because they saw I was pregnant, or that someone might want to help me or take pity on me in any way somehow repulsed me.

I also didn’t like the idea of people looking at me and thinking it was 'beautiful' that I was pregnant, because that wasn’t how I felt. My distorted thought process made me fear that being pregnant could make certain people want to attack me. Honestly, I believed that someone would see me as a vulnerable person and think, 'I can take her down.'

While these delusions were taking over my life, I was constantly worried about how I could keep my baby growing and keep it safe.

Because we conceived through IVF, my pregnancy was closely monitored. I had lots of check-ups and the physical side was relatively smooth, but it didn’t stop the fears from interfering.

I never experienced the 'glowing' pregnancy feeling people talk about, either. If anything, it made me feel as though I’d already done nine months of 'labour' before even giving birth.

Sharing my feelings

Talking about my tokophobia was the only way I got through it. The feelings of disgust, delusions and fears were so overwhelming that I had to tell someone. It was too much for me to handle alone. Thankfully, my husband was so supportive.

"There’s no way I can put myself in your shoes, but I’ll help you through in any way I can," he told me at the time. He listened patiently and encouraged me to open up about my unusual fears to make them feel more manageable and less shocking.

He consistently said things like, "I’m here for you," and "You’re not alone." His presence and these constant reminders were really helpful for me.

Four of my closest girlfriends were also there for me throughout my pregnancy. I trusted them completely, so I was able to talk through all of my worries with them without any shame or fear of them calling me 'crazy'.

I felt lucky I could speak so openly. The combination of talking to my husband, my best friends and the professional therapist I was already seeing, is what got me through.

My therapist had never come across tokophobia before. That's another reason why it’s so important to talk about it, so mental health professionals can be trained to identify the symptoms and support people through them.

Looking back, I realise that there was also some element of gender dysphoria going on for me because I now identify as a non-binary person.

Before I was pregnant, I never fully identified with the label 'mother'. Instead, I now think of myself as a non-binary person, who doesn't fit neatly into male or female gender categories. That's another thing that I wish therapists were more trained to support pregnant people with.

The birth

As my due date got closer, my fears about giving birth became stronger. When I was six months’ pregnant I started childbirth classes and my teacher Penny helped me create my birth plan. This was instrumental for my mental health, as it helped me to prepare for the reality of what to expect.

One non-negotiable in my plan included having no pain relief medication because I wanted to compare the pain of labour with my chronic pain. I found that labour pains were, for me, much easier to endure because I knew they had a purpose and would eventually end.

My friend Lisa was also my doula, and she and Penny were hugely helpful during my labour. I was really lucky to have a great birthing team who respected my wishes, and that I was able to have my baby at the birthing centre of my choice. It helped me feel more in control of what was happening.

When my contractions finally started, although the fears weren’t completely gone I was able to be very present throughout the whole labour. The alarming thoughts of crushing the baby’s head were still in the back of my mind – but they weren’t as vivid. At some points, I even allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of being in labour.

When I held my baby for the first time, I just felt proud and I remember thinking to myself, 'I overcame a lot and I did this.'

I was also lucky enough to avoid having a C-section, which had been a major worry of mine. I know that in some circumstances it’s unavoidable for safety, but thankfully, it wasn’t necessary for me.

Looking back now, I can see my thought process was very unusual. It really helped that my fears were taken seriously by my birth team. The care they provided was so critical for my mental health and helped me to have a non-traumatic birth.

I believe it’s vital to invest in birthing support if we want to break the cycle of pregnancy and birth-related trauma. This includes everything from prenatal to postnatal care, to doulas, midwives and birthing centres.

Life with a newborn

Immediately after I gave birth, it felt as though my fears completely went away in that moment. I’m not sure whether it was the huge endorphin rush I felt or the fact that I was riding on a high having just gone through labour.

But not long after we got home from hospital, I began to experience different fears. Being a new parent, I started to feel terrified that I wouldn’t be able to form an attachment to my child, and even worse, that I wouldn’t be able to raise them.

The first fear I felt was, 'Oh my gosh, we’re alone now. It’s just me and my husband and the baby.' It was completely different from having a lot of support at the hospital, so all of a sudden I felt like, 'Am I going to be able to bond with this newborn baby who is a big ball of needs? Or am I just going to feel completely drained, and literally sucked dry because I was breastfeeding?'

At this point, I knew my tokophobia would put me at high risk for postnatal depression (PND.) In the weeks and months after the birth, I began to worry that I’d struggle to form an attachment with my baby – partly as well, because I hadn’t had a strong attachment with my own parents.

To avoid slipping into PND, I made sure that I had a lot of support, building my own postnatal team, which included Juan, my mother-in-law and my friends Mia and Lisa.

Over the first month of my baby being a newborn at home, I had at least one of these four people around me all the time. They would come in and out, helping me with all the things that come with having a newborn while I was recovering from the birth.

There were a lot of ups and downs, but nothing like what I faced during pregnancy. I'm sure because I surrounded myself with such a strong support system, that's why I didn’t suffer from PND in the end.

Looking to the future

Because of my experience with tokophobia, I’m often asked whether I’d have another child. But the reality is that when my husband and I decided to start trying for a baby, I always knew that I only wanted one child. For me, that’s because I was aware of my capacity to raise children.

When we underwent IVF all those years ago, we had two embryos implanted to give us a higher success rate of conceiving. It wasn’t because we wanted two children – in fact, I was terrified at the possibility of having twins. I didn’t know if I was physically going to be able to do it and I didn't know if I had the emotional bandwidth to try and raise two children.

In the end, only one of the embryos survived, and it made me feel like, 'OK, maybe the universe does give you what you can handle.'

My son is now 10 and looking back, I wish I didn't have to find out about tokophobia on my own through a Google search, and I just hope we can live in a world where it is addressed a bit more.

Hopefully, and this is why I’ve shared my story, there’ll be more of a conversation about it in the future – one where people can understand how complicated pregnancy and birth can be, and that it's not just easy and natural for everybody.

Jen Soraino is the author of Nervous, a collection of essays on heritage and healing.

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