To ask for pregnancy anxiety / mental health survival stories?!

I'm going to add this onto my list of threads to reply too. It's one that's really close to me... But I'm trying to "parent" today. Suffering from bastard kidney infection, family can never be arsed to help with DS and I've done nothing but cry all morning...
Xx

I tried to insist on MH grounds whilst in a MBU and wasn't allowed one despite getting an advocate, my CPN etc all to argue for one... I was refused in the basis it wouldn't have any benefit to the health of my baby o me mentally or phusically

In the event I needed an EMCS after I had completed labour anyway

However he is still a perfect healthy 3 year old

I hope you find a much kinder consultant if you really have your heart set on a c section! I have been told it's easier to request with 2nd kids than your first...

PS with the c section , they might dismiss it out of hand but have a think and if it's really what you want you can insist on it for mh reasons. I did and it was the best thing I could have done, wish I'd done it first time round. Personally after the horror of the pregnancy anxiety, I wish I'd had a peaceful ish, predicable start to motherhood.

Hope you enjoyed seeing your friend and had a lovely hug with bumps

Go enjoy yourself! Just blame hormones if you feel twattish at any point and say your tired if you need to come home early. The fact you're able to think about meeting a friend is something you should give yourself a huge pat on the back over! Rooting for you Xxx

How you feeling today? Would requesting a c section help? Then at least you know when the baby will arrive and how it will happen. I only say as this really helped me second time round.

Hi OP, I had terrible anxiety from the moment I knew I was pregnant until my DS was born. My first baby was stillborn and I was convinced my DS would die too. In fact I was so anxious I could barely get out of bed some days. My anxiety seemed to mostly manifest itself in fear of germs/illness (despite that having nothing to do with my first baby's death) and living in London meant I was almost housebound for fear of germs. I had to stop going to work as I couldn't cope with public transport. I cried at least every day and pushed my DH to his absolute limit, there was at least one screaming row each week as he struggled to deal with my totally irrational fears.
I did have a wonderfully supportive counsellor who I saw once a month and then once a week towards the end. I also had acupuncture which helped for the time I was in with her (and then afterwards I would worry about the acupuncture hurting the baby).
What I'm trying to say is, my anxiety was crippling but my DS is wonderful and healthy (he is 19 months now). If anxiety and stress could harm a baby then he certainly wouldn't be here.
Regarding after the birth, my counsellor was sure the anxiety would just vanish instantly and whilst I was significantly better very soon the anxiety has taken time to fade. I would say within 4/5 months j was functioning "normally" but before that time I probably just came across as a highly strung first time mum rather than anything out of the ordinary.
I still have the occasional irrational fears that tend to be worse when I am stressed about something else, but generally I am SO much better. Like you, I had fears that the crippling anxiety would be with me forever and I would be a recluse.
I found that a list of practical chores got me through the last few weeks, and a lot of resting and watching tv/mumsnetting.
You are very nearly there, well done and keep going, just take it each half day at a time.

I'm sure I had an exceptional extreme case - I couldn't do any self care whatsoever it was that bad, not even brush my teeth without much prompting for a whole 3 months.

My son is still a strapping healthy 3 year old.

Out of all the friends I made as an inpatient in a mother and baby unit there are ZERO children who have had long term effects.

This is what leads me to believe much of it is what happens after birth with the bonding process and not actually purely down to the physiological effects of stress or anxiety. All of us were ill enough to be sectionable x

Put leach down! Useless load of pseudo scientific cobblers. Pick up no more baby or pregnancy books, until you are ready. You are not ready. Sending hug.

Sleepless I was a wreck. Won't put too much identifiable info in but had a family emergency 9 weeks into pregnancy then started a new job (working in MH services!) at 12 weeks- from that point on I was very anxious about everything! It escalated from the expected anxiety of the above events to being a big problem. I was depressed, gained excessive weight (which I posted about on here) due to comfort eating and generally just felt like I had lost my mind. It did carry on until DS was 4mo but I then sought treatment. In the end the thing that helped me was analytical hypnotherapy (obviously this doesn't help everybody but it worked for me) and since then I have been back to the old me. Feels like a weight has been lifted and I am happy again.

I've read some of your previous posts and your experiences resonate so much with me. DD (now 7) was planned, but conception happened a lot faster than expected. My lifestyle was pretty bad at the time - lots of drinking, smoking, late nights etc and a very stressful job too. I've always been prone to worrying and anxiety, and had been prescribed antidepressant medication in the past for two periods of depression, but this was something else. I was obsessed with the possibility that I'd harmed my baby by drinking / smoking prior to knowing I was pg, endlessly researching online and being sent into a tailspin by a throwaway comment or BBC article. I was tearful, irritable and no amount of reassurance would be enough. Like you mention up thread, I would generate a 'reason' why the positive outcomes couldn't apply to me, and the cycle would continue. There's something v compulsive about the anxiety, imo, which means the reassurance almost feeds it, iykwim? The anxiety didn't dissipate after dd was born, although did get better, but I found myself obsessing over milk intake and SIDS in similar ways. I eventually sought treatment when dd was about 5m old, with SSRIs, and then never looked back. DD is the light of my life and entirely happy and healthy. Whilst she's showing some signs of being a bit of a worrier, I think that's likely to be a personality trait or learned behaviour tbh, and is not uncommon in children with all sorts of starts in life. There's lots of mh issues in my family.

With DS, who's a toddler, I took proactive steps early on in the pregnancy. Engaged with perinatal mh team, had some cbt, worked out a plan for after he was born - in my case, imipramine so I could bf. (In both my pregnancies I was too scared to take meds although was reassured about them by GP and psychiatrist - part of the anxiety I think). Imipramine worked well, although have swapped to Citalopram since I stopped bf-ing as wasn't keen on the side effects (dry mouth etc). Pregnancy with DS was better: still issues but had more understanding of the mechanisms at play, if that makes sense? DS is a monkey, but also the light of my life and happy and healthy too.

You can do this, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. Wishing you all the best xxxxx

That's fab news Sleepless xxx

Great! So pleased. When are you due?

Thinking of you op. Hope your feeling OK

If your under a psych team make sure they know you can be admitted during pregnancy as some don't even know that much less a GP being aware these units exist.

The Bethlem one would be your catchment area I think (Eden park/new beckenham area) and has sixteen beds available at any one time. It's awesome and hopefully some staff still remain from 3 years ago, most were excellent at their jobs.

If you have a supportive mum that's brilliant and will help SO much after birth. Connect with ladies from PANDAS charity or I know of cocoon family support which I haven't used myself but have seen advertised on facebook as I found it invaluable to my healing process having the friends who had also experienced illness connected to the journey to motherhood and you can then also see the babies who ARE fine with your own eyes and gain confidence it will be okay even if you dont get a bed in a unit xxx