Struggling to be excited for baby

[MelbaF]

I just wanted to get this all off my chest somewhere.

I have always felt a deep primal calling to have children and am currently almost 8 months pregnant with my first. I was absolutely delighted when i found out, especially as 3 of my friends and colleagues are also pregnant at the same time as me!

I am 100% aware that so many people have a rougher time than I have had but I haven't had the easiest of pregnancies. I was diagnosed with HG at 13 weeks and had to be hospitalised, lost an excessive amount of weight, had to be on IV fluids and then was prescribed 3 different anti sickness medications to take regularly for the duration of my pregnancy.

Near the start of the year, my mum was told she only had a matter of weeks to live and I took time off work to care for her until she passed away when I was 6 months pregnant. Then there has been trying to clear her house out and and make necessary arrangements. Between washing her, dressing her, lifting her and trying to move all sorts of things while clearing her house I've given myself horrendous hip, back and pelvic pain that I'm currently waiting on a physio referral for. I don't know if it's the pain or everything I've got running through my head recently but I haven't been able to sleep either and normally only get 2-3 hours of sleep per night. I'm also currently on a waiting list for bereavement counselling.

Anyway, I feel like I've blinked and my pregnancy has disappeared before my eyes because I've been so focused on everything else in my life. I'm so completely unprepared for baby to the point where I don't even have anywhere for them to sleep yet. And because I have been off work for so long, I don't even have any money to sort things out for baby.
I don't feel like I've bonded with baby and I can't bring myself to be excited about the future anymore. When I try and picture how amazing it will be to finally have my bundle of joy in my arms, all I can focus on is how my mum will always be the missing part of the jigsaw and whill never get to meet her grandchild.

My best friend gave birth this week and since I found out that she has this beautiful healthy baby girl, I can hardly stop thinking about it and it frequently brings me to tears. She has this beautiful house and a loving husband and has had a textbook pregnancy and clearly loves her baby more than anything else in the world already and I have this horrible mixture of emotions about it. I'm so jealous of her but also terrified that I've only got a short couple of months until that's me and I'm so woefully unprepared. What if I don't love my baby like she loves hers? What if my house is still a mess by the time I give birth and I don't have anything prepared for baby the way she does? I wanted this to be one of the happiest times of my life but it feels far from it.

At this point I'm not sure if I'm depressed or just dealing with a lot right now or if it's normal grieving. Might be relevant to mention I was on antidepressants until I got pregnant. I stopped them because with my HG I vomited every time I took them and my consultant was happy for me to stay off them as she was concerned they could cause problems with baby at birth anyway. I've not had any mental health concerns since stopping them up until my mum died. I don't even feel particularly stressed or particularly low but I just want to feel that excitement again that I felt when I first got pregnant. I know rationally that everything will work out and I will get the house in order and sort out the nursery and stuff in time but I want to feel more than like I'm just coping.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I have no experience of the pregnancy complications you've had. I do however, have experience of having a baby without my mum there.

Whilst the situation is slight different (my mum died five years before my son was born but died two weeks after my nephew was born).
It is absolutely heart-breaking to not have you mum in the picture and for them not to meet your child. Your grief is still raw and new, any and all emotions that you feel are valid. Allow yourself to grieve, be kind to yourself. I found speaking to people, getting outside helped. Crying if I needed to and even just saying 'Mum' out loud helped. I found I never really said the word 'Mum' after she died, and hearing it resonate in my head as I said it aloud to myself was a comfort.

If you're feeling down (before or after baby is born), it's always best to talk to someone. A professional (the bereavement helplines, midwife, Dr etc), a friend or relative (or partner if you have one).

No one can predict how you will feel when baby is born and if you feel you are struggling to cope at any point, always speak to someone. Try not compare your birth/baby/situation to others (much easier said than done I know!)

You may not have everything you need but you still have time (online deliveries are a dream and most things delivered next day). Or second hand sites (facebook marketplace, gumtree etc), baby markets (like little pickles) or even car boot sales are handy. You may also be able to long term borrow things from friends/colleagues, worth an ask.

My son is now 8 and, whilst my dad has re-married and son has a step-grandmother, we still talk about my mum. He calls her 'nan in the sky' and sometimes draws her in pictures or randomly speaks/asks about her. I also have pictures up of her and talk about her and we also visit where her ashes were scattered a lot to say hello to her. I like to think that she's watching over my son.

Good luck with your journey.

I'm sorry about your mum.

Do you have a DP? They should be pulling their weight with a lot of the practical stuff.

I was in a different scenario but I gave birth at 27 weeks (DS2 is doing very well now thankfully) and I felt a lot of grief for not having the pregnancy I wanted. I had counselling and that did help.

What I've found helpful is to remind myself that while we hyper focus on pregnancy and birth that is such a small part of being a parent.

No one knows how you'll feel when you do give birth, but in terms of support the NHS does prioritise people in the 2 years postpartum period and there's lots of routes to get support.

Thank you!

My husband is amazing and supportive and excited for baby but suffers with quite bad anxiety and is currently in the middle of having his anxiety meds changed so is much more on edge than normal atm. Everytime I talk to him about how i feel, as much as he tries to reassure me, I can see how much it makes him panic and stress about the situation we are in and how unprepared we are so I don't like to worry him.

From a practical point of view, we didn't expect me to have to be off work so early on so me taking the time off to look after my mum has financially completely screwed us over. My husband is working full time plus overtime at the weekends to help boost our income so as guilty as it makes him feel, he doesn't have a lot of time to help out with sorting the nursery and clearing my mums house. He does try though. He will often go round to my mums house at 10pm at night after work and move some of the heavier things for me but it doesn't seem fair on him that he is pushing himself so much.

I'm hopeful things become a bit easier when I finally start some counselling after being on the wait list for weeks.

Remember that you don't actually need to have the nursery sorted. They're going to be with you for the first six months, and you might not want them in a separate room at 6 months. Even if you do they'll be in a cot, so the room doesn't need to be perfect. DS1's "nursery" was our tiny second bedroom, which was primarily my home office. It wasn't until we had moved and he was in a bed rather than a cot that he had his own room that was actually geared towards a child.

Are you on local Facebook groups? There will always be parents desperate to get rid of the baby things cluttering their house, and you can pick up really good things for free or practically no money. The only things you need new are a mattress for whatever sleeping option you've gone for and a car seat, unless you there's someone you trust that is passing one on (the risk is that they've previously been in a car seat and there's unseen damage).

As for your mum's place, are you still in the position where you're sorting out sentimental belongings? In your position I'd work out what you had to do and what you could arrange for someone else to do - it doesn't have to cost any money. I know for my grandparents that after my dad had done that there were two companies that came and sorted out all the major belongings - an auction house to check if any of the furniture (which hadn't been changed since the 50s in some cases) was worth anything, and if they felt it was the arranged everything for a bigger than normal cut, and then British heart Foundation (I think) for everything else.

It sounds like you're just in the middle of a really shit time right now for a variety of reasons, but hopefully with the med changes and counselling everything will start to get a bit better.