I need to get some things off my chest. In the early stages of this pregnancy, I would write my fears down and suddenly, a day or so later everything seemed a lot less overwhelming and intense. I'm hoping, now, the same effect will happen.
Ever since Monday, after reading really beautiful and touching stories of women who have lost, not only pregnancies, but infants, I have been terrified of loosing my baby. For the past 2 nights, I have woken up at 3 am and all I can do is worry. I am terrified that the baby will die before I go into labour or worse, it will die during labour. I've researched the data, and almost 1800 cases of still-births happen each year in Ontario - the national average being 6.4 for every 1000. For some reason, I thought researching the likely-hood will give me comfort - instead it has made me worry even more.
I'm also paranoid - given my field of work - something will happen during labour that will cause permanent injury to my child. In my job, Cerebral Palsey is very common. Out of 40 students who are in our program, 4 or 5 have CP. Now there are many ways an infant will get CP, and there are varying degrees of it, but the most common is loss of oxygen during birth causing sever physical and potential mental disabilities. If labour takes a long time, especially transition, I will be worried the entire time that I'm causing harm to my baby.
I've always wanted a natural delivery with no interventions. Now, the fear of loosing my baby is so great that I have contemplated taking interventions just to have a healthy baby.
I was 1 in 4 who experienced miscarriage twice. During the first two pregnancies, I was terrified of having a miscarriage and when I did, my world came crashing down. Now, I'm terrified of loosing my baby. Is this just an irrational fear or could it be a premonition of something to come. I'm sure there have been women who experience a wonderful pregnancy to have their world come to an end when their child is born asleep.
I am hoping that this is a 'normal' fear given everything I have been through and not indicative of something to come. I'm hoping by writing my fears down, I can move on and focus on the beauty of what is to come. I just pray that it happens sooner rather than later because in my mind, the sooner the baby comes, the better chance he/she will have of survival.
Did anyone else have these irrational fears? If so, how did you cope? How did you move on and enjoy the experience. Why does this pregnancy have to be so filled with worry and anxiety? I wish I could be oblivious like many women I know :(
I totally hear you.....I am terrified of everything you mentioned. I am also right there with you at 3 am. I suffer from extreme anxiety and after much therapy I still worry. I will for sure be thinking of you, and totally know you are not alone!
ReplyDeleteMichelle
These fears are all normal. I experienced them in the last weeks of my pregnancy, and I worried further that the fears were an indication that something WOULD go wrong. I thought it was my subconscious warning me. Then, we had to deliver early at 37 weeks and I was terrified. But my little one is happy and healthy, and yours will be, too.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the thoughtful comment over on my blog. :)
ReplyDeleteDo you feel better once you wrote all this out? I have to admit those are scary numbers (not reassuring at all) and it made my heart skip a beat too.
I think you and baby are going to be just fine, it's no wonder you have all these fears near the home stretch, you've been worrying all this time and now you have new fears to work with. But you are SO close! Hang in there. Make sure baby moves all the time, and if not, go right on in for a non sress test, and do everything possible to relieve your fears.
I'm doing hypnobabies and one of the discs is a positive pregnancy affirmations, and it's really helping to calm me to hear and say these affirmations daily. Let me know if you'd like me to copy the disc for you, I'd be more than happy to mail it to you.
Hi! I'm here from PAIL.
ReplyDeleteConsidering what you've been through, your fears are completely normal. At least that's what my physchiatrist told me after I had a missed miscarriage two years ago around this time.
Miscarriage scars you for life and forever changes your perception of things.
While I was pregnant with my little girl, I had dreams of miscarrying her and it scared this living crap out of me. I was afraid it was a premonition too. Then when she was born I was fearful of putting her to bed at night and finding her lifeless body in the morning.
I asked my friends who never had a miscarriage if they had these same fears or dreams and they didn't.
My pregnancy went well until the last month when I was stricken with Bells Palsy on the right side of my face. It was a hot mess. I was so worried that it would stay that way, but a neurologist said that the way my symptoms presented that it should go away, but he couldn't say how long it would take. Thankfully it went away pretty soon after I delivered.
My blood pressure went up the week before my due date and I had to start taking meds. I didn't have a blood pressure issue before being pregnant, nor was it an issue during the majority of my pregnancy.
How did I cope with the fear and worry? As I mentioned before, I was seeing a professional to talk about my fears (she specializes in counselling women/families who have lost children or experienced miscarriages), distracted myself with knitting or other hobbies, tried to focus on positive aspects of my pregnancy (what she would look like, decorating her room, etc.), and prayer (my faith played a big part in coping with my fears and still does).
Unfortunately the worrying doesn't stop after you have your little one, but you should find some way of dealing with the worry and fear.
Hang in there!
I didn't feel like my girls were "safe" until an hour before my c-section, when the nurse hooked me up to monitors to do one last non-stress test. For some reason, in that moment, I thought, "Well, okay, if they're fine now then chances are pretty good they'll still be fine an hour from now." Of course, they were, because they were always fine, it was just my paranoia and fear that had me pretty terrified for most of my pregnancy.
ReplyDeleteYou're so close to meeting your baby and that in itself is pretty terrifying. It's BIG. It's so, so normal to be worried now that you're so close to both meeting your baby AND to this huge life change and responsibility. You'll probably still be nervous the first few days, wondering if the baby is really okay. And then eventually, you'll find your groove, you'll be fine and the baby will be fine.
I wish you a peaceful birth and baby moon <3