Worried about the beginning of kindergarten with my nervous son

This got long sorry!My son's starting kindergarten in a few weeks and I'm very nervous about it. Lately with anything new or unfamiliar he's been getting very worked up and just refuses to go through with it or even try.It's always with anything where the attention is on him. For example, he had a dentist appointment a few weeks ago, and he's been there several times before and often talks about how he likes his dentist, but when it came time to get checked out he dug his heels into the floor and refused to get into the chair so his little sister went instead.Also with family gatherings or birthday parties, once we get to the door he just becomes extremely fearful and says he's too shy or too scared and spends 15-20 minutes cowering by the door. My husband and I can't convince him to go in even if we warn everyone ahead of time to just pretend he's not there, and usually it takes a charismatic friend or family member who is good with kids to coax him in.If we try to just carry him in it feels cruel and also he's so big now that it's hard and dangerous and if he screams or yells it's embarrassing.Once he's into a party or whatever he's totally fine and mostly great with other kids and making conversation, but if it's somewhere he's never been or only goes to a few times per year he just plants himself to the ground and gets angry at anyone who tries to convince him to come in.So kindergarten - first we have a meet the teacher a few days before he starts, and then the first day of school, and then the following week he starts riding the bus. So these are 3 big days where I'm just seeing as disasters in my head where he decides that he's too scared and won't do it.I think he's well prepared for this, he's got all the academic stuff down so it shouldn't be too new or scary, but sometimes when I talk about school with him lately he starts to get nervous and say he doesn't want to go. I want to lessen his fears by talking about school with him but I'm afraid I'm just planting fears every time I bring it up.We had problems previously with him refusing to go into a cooking class or swim class, which we got past by making a sticker chart and saying he would get a sticker every time he went into his class and listened to the teacher and did what she said he would get a sticker. That worked really well and he ended up being in love with both classes by the end, but that was a year ago so I'm not sure how well it would work now or I'm scared that I'd just be making kindergarten out to be a scarier thing if he's getting a sticker reward for just going in.Any advice would be appreciated!Side note - I'm pregnant and due at the end of September so I'm really hopeful about getting a good positive school routine going before the baby is born and throws a wrench in things. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2xrgoig