To find early pregnancy very isolating

[BumpNGrind]

I've just found out I'm pregnant, i think I'm 7 weeks gone and am waiting desperately until I pass the 12 week mark, and 1, pass a big hurdle in terms if my child's safety and 2, tell people.

At the moment only DH knows, but my usually lovely, supportive husband has been replaced by a moody shrugging man who i don't know. He's told me I'm a diva for feeling tired and blaming my pregnancy, he thinks I'm ridiculous for wanted to go to bed before midnight, shouted at me last night because i didn't want to go to his colleagues leaving drinks, when I'd 'chosen' to work late by attending an event linked to my job and is basically rubbishing my pregnancy saying that I'm going to be a nightmare throughout.

Dh doesn't want me to tell my DM because she has a tendency to blab but also she flies into rages with me frequently because she doesn't think i do enough for her. I go out with her every week but because I don't always go to her house, she screams at me that I never visit.

I've decided to tell DM if she shows any interest in me, if she asks how I am or what I've been doing for example. She hasn't and I feel very lonely.

Our baby is planned, very much wanted and will be adored but the news seems to have changed my usually calm, lovely and supportive DH, and now I feel like I have no-one. Please tell me that I'm not the only one who's felt lonely in early pregnancy.

Agree that it is not the pregnancy making you isolated, but your husband's unpleasant behaviour. Perhaps he needs to come to terms with being a father, but there is not one jot of excuse for his aggression towards you. Early pregnancy is absolutely exhausting - I felt as if someone had pumped me full of some kind of tiredness chemical. You need peace and stability, not to be surrounded by angry, aggressive behaviour.

Have a frank talk with your husband, and make it plain that whatever his private demons, his behaviour to you is unacceptable. He doesn't get to decide how tired you feel. Your mother sounds like a lost cause. Don't you have a close friend you could confide in? Getting away by yourself somewhere peaceful and beautiful sounds like a good idea - I spent a week walking (very slowly) alone in Cornwall, which was lovely.

My DH was very off in early pg. Got frustrated about how tired I was - I'd fall asleep in the evenings on sofa.

He never seemed very interested at that stage. Second trimester when I bloomed and was less tired and late pg he was fine. Great once they were born.

I also think DH thought it would take longer than it did each time to get pg.

I found my parents annoying as I'd be in bed early or tired and they'd take to ringing and insisting I be woken up - they didn't know but still bloody odd thing to do.

I think DH just didn't get how exhausted I was and he missed having evenings with me. He was better by 3rd pg.

Try talking to your DH - explain it's normal and see if he takes that in.

I phoned DH about an hour ago, nearly in tears and told him that I'm really unhappy with him. I told him that I needed more support and that I'm not being a diva when I'm experiencing real symptoms. He's apologised immediately and said he's been taken aback by how quickly these symptoms have come about and that he was expecting them much later on. I said that's not a good enough reason and he needs to support me. He's just text me offering to join me at a public meeting i have to go to tonight, to speak on behalf of my mother, which is a start.

I'll have a proper chat with him tonight but his apology has given me a bit of hope that this is a temporary loss of senses. I'll get him a book as well and bash him over the head with it if he's like this again. I've also decided to tell my DMIL about the pregnancy because I know she'll be really supportive.

My mother will have to wait for the time being.

Thank you for the advice and handholding.

My husband was like yours early on.

I wanted to leave him he was making me so miserable.

12 week scan changed things.

I'm glad he has apologised. I hope this is the start in an improvement in attitude. I was pretty dismayed reading your OP.

I think learning more about pregnancy would help him understand. From week 4 (when most people find out) to week 12, your embryo develops from just a few cells to something resembling a baby (look at 12 week scan pics) with a brain, a heart, other organs, a spine and so on. Plus you start to grow a whole new organ - the placenta. It's normal that your body might find all of that a strain.

For many people the symptoms actually lessen once they reach the second trimester. So he's got it all wrong in expecting few symptoms early on.

I was incredibly tired in my first tri. And when the nausea hit I couldn't do anything other than lay on the sofa and groan. Mr euro looked after me, cooked things to try to tempt me to eat and generally helped me through it as much as he could. It's not a fun phase but it's 8 weeks (from BFP to 12 weeks, when most people start to feel a bit more human) so it's really not a long time to get through.

You are growing a human. The quicker he realises this the better.

Im only newly pg at five weeks and am shattered. This is my third pg and I know there is worse to come. However there will be times in the middle trimester where you feel full of beans.

Congratulations on your pregnancy.

I felt very isolated at the beginning of my 3rd pregnancy. It was the summer holidays, I felt incredibly ill and no one knew so I spent a lot of time on my own with the children in the garden. Thankfully the weather was nice. I did feel relieved when I could tell everyone and I had a reason for being so unsociable!

I'm 7 weeks tom and was in bed at 8pm yest! It's totally knackering! You need to hae a stern word with him.

Also get some RL support. Telling a couple of people won't hurt

Good luck
X

Oops that will teach me to rtwt! Glad you're telling your MIL an you've pulled him up on his behaviour. Educating him is a good way to go.

Have you seen this day by day explanation I what your babies doing?
pregnancy.familyeducation.com/first-trimester/5-weeks-7-days.html

Yes it is very isolating. Glad your husband has apologised.
Anne Enright is brilliant on writing on early pregnancy exhaustion: she said something comparing it to crops but "having to make the field first"/

When I was pg and feeling very weird about it and had told no one I was addicted to my mn ante natal thread. See if you feel better when you have someone to talk to online.

And make sure your husband reads some stuff that will show him things are going to be hard for you and he needs to step up.

Pregnancy is bloody hard work. I have hg luckily controlled by medicine but even at 25 weeks feel exhausted most of the time. My dh had to do everything for the first four months. He found it hard but never complained. He was told very firmly by my consultant though that he'd have to do a lot. Our hormones and bodies are changing at a massive rate and men just have to accept that.

The pregnancy forum is a lovely place to post questions. Have a search through the forum for pregnancy book recommendations. There were some recently. I got a post pregnancy book but I head what to expect when you're expecting is pretty good. I think that's what it is called!

And most days I am in bed by 8! Glad to hear he's going to make an effort so hope you can enjoy your pregnancy.

By the way on the miscarriage thing it's a very personal choice. I mc in Feb last year and had foolishly told a few people and it was horrendous having to tell people the news. I am not the type to want people around for that aside from dh, but other posters understandably want that support from dm etc. It's up to you with what you are comfortable with.

I wonder if he thinks it's going to get worse, and doesn't know about the lifting of the tiredness once the placenta and cord are pretty much formed.

He has still been a huge douchebag towards you and I hope his apology is the start of a new attitude.

If you can explain that the first trimester includes the formation of the structures around the baby, and that this is very very tiring indeed - very energy-expensive. Lots of women get breathless during this stage because it's such a demanding task.

I'm a real livewire and nightowl (by livewire I mean never still, not scintillating company!) and I was (self-employed) sleeping in until 11.00am and nodding off again by 9.00pm....when I wasn't barfing, that is (hyperemesis).

The tiredness will lift at 13 weeks or so, quite magically. Then it'll return towards the end, but it's a physical tiredness then (IYSWIM, and not so all-consuming.

Keep us posted; big congrats.

My DH struggled to understand just how awful the exhaustion and nausea phase is first time round. They can't see any obvious sign of pregnancy and don't appreciate how it sucks the life force from you. My first trimester was still going strong at 17 weeks when we had the "other peoples' pregnancies" row. I can't remember any other occasion of shouting at him, but he couldn't understand why my symptoms hadn't magically vanished a month earlier and was telling me about what x and y did when they were pregnant, I was shouting back that he didn't know what x and y did in their own homes and maybe they crashed out for 2 hours after work before feeling like death for the rest of the evening. He did care, he was worried that I couldn't eat, but asking my mum to verify what I'd eaten on a visit to her wasn't the most helpful approach.

Second time he was much better as he was prepared for a total personality and energy change from me, and we had learned some survival strategies like eating little and often, and unthreatening portions from a teaplate.

Early pregnancy can be a shock to them as the symptoms are disproportionate to the obvious signs. Usually they get more understanding as the pregnancy gets more obvious. Communicating and information about pregnancy symptoms should help.

I told people on a need to know basis. Some knew for practical reasons before 12 weeks as it was better for mine and baby's welfare. If some thing had gone wrong, I would probably want to tell them anyway.

I hope things continue to improve between you and that the symptoms don't outstay their welcome.

I have very easy pregnancies - think swimming a mile at 38 weeks pregnant easy.

The only bit I found hard was the first few weeks - it's hardly surprising - at 7 weeks I think you are growing a person's brain! The rest of it is a doddle in comparison.

I remember going cycling with dh at about 8 weeks, going to cycle up a bank (that I went up all the time) and getting stuck! We thought my bike had broken. After spending ages trying to work out what was wrong with it we realised it was me that was broken. Someone else (who is now nearly 4) was getting first dibs on all the oxygen going through my body.

The thing is that dh found all this amazing. He knew his wife was fit and sporty so if she now wasn't that was his evidence that there really was something going on in my body. Far better than a random line on a stick!

You're spot on about the oxygen. Pre-pregnancy I was running and gymming regularly and considered myself pretty fit for someone with a desk job. Last weekend I had to climb 80 steep stairs. I literally collapsed at the top! The person working there was quite worried. I have never been out of breath like it before. I felt really quite unwell. Last summer I climbed several bell towers in Italy without a second thought. Early pregnancy is hard on your body.

Good advice here but I just wanted to add that my DH was similar, we fell quickly with our first baby and he just went into a bit of an emotional black hole about it and didn't engage at all. In his defense, he had lost his dad 3 months previously and then suffered a big career set back (that he had taken as a given) at the same time as the bpf. I was heartbroken and furious with him but he just couldn't process it all. Things definitely improved as the pregnancy progressed though and he is an amazing dad. When we got our 2nd bpf (which took us longer) he appeared similarly disinterested and we had a big argument over something silly (cant even remember what!). I just think sometimes men find it very difficult to come up with the 'right' reaction and then shutdown. So I think that whilst your DH has been unfair to you, it's also not an entirely abnormal reaction. Keep talking and be honest with him about the support you need as you have been and everything should be fine, especially if he continues to respond as positively as he has already. Best of luck

It's not the same for men either I think. Dh often says he feels a bit removed from it all as he's not going to physically see anything much and all the change are happening to me. He is fab and enjoys feeling the baby kick and nearly died of a cute attack when he held up a newborn babygro for the first time though! But it's hard for them to relate to the immediacy of it all.

There's a big difference between not understanding the effects of early pregnancy and behaving in an abusive manner though. Remember the OP said that her DH had "told me I'm a diva" and "shouted at me", that's not the behaviour of a good man having a rough time, it's the behaviour of a selfish bastard.

I'm glad he's apologised OP, but please be aware of his behaviour from now on and pull him up if he shows the slightest sign of falling back into this habit.