To feel so unsure about pregnancy

[Kitkat121226]

I’m 30, recently engaged and in a really happy relationship. I was so looking forward to the next year, have a fun holiday with friends coming up, had just started wedding planning and have a lovely life spending time with friends and drinking lots of wine. I don’t know if it is normal to feel this disappointed with the news. I know I am so lucky to have so many lovely things on the table but I can’t help but feel a bit gutted that the life I love is going to end. I also don’t have any friends with babies and I’m terrified I’m going to be really lonely. Please help.

Why would your life end? Are you married to a cave man who will chain you to the kitchen? If so I’d sack off the marriage.

But it’s fine if you don’t want to have a baby, you didn’t plan this and you have options.

You don't have to have a baby you don't want.

Thank you both. The thing is I do really want a baby - in maybe a year’s time. I just can’t distinguish if this is normal shock and fear or a sign that I shouldn’t go through with it. I’ve never felt so torn in my life…

What does your finance think? What’s so different in a years time? You can still get married and go on holidays in a year

Also completely unsure but totally supportive. Which is lovely but not helping me make a decision at all! He’ll be a wonderful dad and has a job where he can fully work from home (i am public sector and will have to go back in full time) which would make childcare easy

You will still need full time paid childcare if he works from home, just an fyi…

Sorry should have been clearer - he’s a freelance artist so will just change his hours to work around me getting home etc

Honestly if you know you definitely want children in the future, you’d be mad to abort now for the sake of a year.
If you’re generally not sure whether you want kids, then that’s a different story.

It’s a normal reaction to an unplanned pregnancy but your life isn’t going to end, it will just change.
First off is your fiance happy about it? Is he supportive?
When is the holiday booked for? You can still go if you’re going to still be 1st/2nd trimester. Make sure your travel insurance covers you if anything goes wrong.
You can still get married, bring your wedding forward or postpone a year or two (I’d bring forward personally).
Yes you won’t be drinking wine for a while but you can still go out with your friends and once the baby is born you can have night out and leave the baby with its dad.
Having a young baby is a good time to make new friends, there will be so many women in the same situation as you and there are all sorts of baby groups you can join, I made friends for life at baby groups.

Well, it's a big change in your life and can take a while to get your head round! But it doesn't mean that your life is over or that you can't have fun - small babies are very portable and we took ours out and about with us a lot.

Holiday booked for two weeks time so I won’t be able to tell friends at that point which is scaring me! Fiance really supportive which is great. I’m very lucky I just don’t know why I’m feeling this sense of ?doom?

You can tell your friends any time you want to.

‘You have options’ … how blasé

With my very much planned and wanted pregnancy i still felt like this after the positive test!! It’s completely normal, it is a big life change. But also I think you’d be mad to abort when you are in a committed relationship, getting married and planning a baby next year anyway!

Also, definitely tell your friends! I told my best friend the moment I got the positive! Before my husband even knew! There isn’t any need to wait. Yes, there is a chance of a miscarriage but the world has moved on and waiting until 12 weeks to tell friends is no longer the norm in my experience.

We were actively TTC and I felt very nervous and unsure I'd made the right decision when I got a positive pregnancy test. It's a big life change, and if you're the first in your friendship group I imagine it would feel very daunting.

A lot of your friends will likely all be getting pregnant in the next few years, so I wouldn't worry you're missing out on that life. Five of my friends got married in the same year when we were all 32 🤦 and then went on to have children fairly quickly afterwards.

If you really don't want to be pregnant right now you don't have to continue the pregnancy. You might also lose it naturally anyway - miscarriage is very common and most of my friends had at least one miscarriage before their first child was conceived. But there definitely advantages to being younger, and while yes you will miss out on some stuff, you'll gain other things.

If you're worried about being lonely do NCT or similar - most women find it useful for the first year, at least, even if you drift apart after that. My son's nearly 7 and I still see three of my NCT group regularly.

No, it isn’t blase. And I wouldn’t abort for the sake of a year, her life clearly isn’t ending etc, hence asking more questions. She also made it clear she’s not decided whether to continue with the pregnancy or not yet.

If he’s a good man and you're both in decent jobs you will be fine.

I personally couldn’t terminate a pregnancy on grounds of timing.

30 is a good age to have a baby- still young, fit and plenty of time for you when baby is grown up.

Join an NCT class and get phone numbers of health visitor, breastfeeding counsellor (if you want to) and baby groups in your phone ahead of the birth, stock up the freezer with food and enjoy your happy surprise.

First baby can be tough, but in a few years you’ll have a really fun child and you’ll be young yourself still.

How would you remind an unsure pregnant woman she has options?

I don't understand your use of the word 'blasé' here?

if it helps op we were married and trying but it wasn't happening. I had an amazing trip planned to Nepal, so we stopped trying. Took a test before I took drugs to suspend my period whilst I was away and.... yeah. Apparently when I walked in the bedroom the look on my face, DH thought something awful had happened.
ended up telling people super early to explain why I didn't go to Nepal (didn't think it a great idea as it was mountain trekking and building houses) but he's 10 now and one of my favourite people. I was also the first to have a baby but honestly that just made his spoilt and loved more than all the subsequent babies 😂😂

you have every right to choose and abortion but if you don't, you life will change but not end. tell your friends you're going away with if you choose to continue the pregnancy if that makes your life easier. there's no rules. with my second pregnancy I told people as early as I figured I'd want their support if anything bad happened.

I think an initial panic at the prospect of such a huge change is completely normal. The pregnancy hormones also don't help with overthinking/anxiety. Once baby is here you will not be able to consider a life without them, and tbh you will want to travel with them and do all the fun things with them. It is a massive change yes, but baby will end up fitting in to life and you to their needs, and everything else adapts even the fun stuff eventually.

Honestly it's daunting at any time and yes life changes but I definitely still drink wine as a mum (just not when pregnant or in first few months as frankly I was knackered!) You do go out less frequently and it's more of a logistics sorting but it makes it more fun when you do!

I would say it depends on the friends to how things go. I still have close friends who don't have children and never had plans to have children. I was upfront and said I can be in the thick of things sometimes so sometimes there is quiet periods and we have also adapted meet ups etc. There are others who after my first was born disappeared as they considered me to no longer be fun or have the ability to simply meet for a coffee with 15 mins notice and not have a baby with me! Frankly I'm much better off without the superficial friends!

Also babies are transportable especially before 18 months when they become more of a challenge. Both of my children have flown from 4 months old. The early mornings meant we could see places and get them practically to ourselves so a definite bonus!

You can tell them if you want to, or at least tell one or two of the most trusted ones. Probably a good idea to tell at least one person on the holiday tbh just in case.
I told my friends very early on because we had a weekend away planned and I couldn’t drink so just told them - I saw it as I would tell them if I had a miscarriage anyway