am i being selfish by not waiting?

[Phoebesmum21]

i made the decision recently that i want to go to uni (something ive wanted since having my daughter at 19) but that would mean that we couldnt have another baby for at least 4 yrs and since my daughter is already 2.5yrs we decided that the age difference was more than we wanted. so weve been trying to conceive only for the last 3 weeks or so, but the thing im worried about is that im quite overweight (about 3st) and im worrying that by becoming pregnant now rather than waiting til i can shift the weight i may be putting myself and the baby at risk. i had pre-eclampsia from 30 wks on with my first and im unsure whether this is adding an incresed risk to my second pregnancy? i spoke to the doctor who said i could do with losing a little weight but it shouldnt affect the pregnancy but the district nurse scared me to death by telling me i was risking my own and my unborn (and as yet unconceived!) babies health. the thing is i just dont wanna wait, now weve made the decision its all i can think about, any thoughts? anyone else a bit overweight before conception?

I wasn't overweight and I know that pregnancy is a bad time to be losing weight, but what weight control methods were you planning to pursue? You can take gentle exercise and eat a healthy and balanced diet during pregnancy just as easily as at any other time, which could reduce the impact of being overweight.

Also, at most universities it is possible to take a year out during your course so you could have a baby while at university (in fact my mother had my sister at the end of her first year, and me the week after her finals started and still left uni with a 2:1).

However, if you are concerned and feel uncomfortable then I would stop trying until I was sure I was making the right decision. Is your DH supportive of your concerns?

hes totally supportive but hes also concerned that i might be facing a hellish time during the last 10 wks of pregnancy if the pre-eclampsia reurns and i dont know whether being overweight is increasing this risk or whether its just a luck of the draw issue over a predisposition. i feel personally that i would struggle breaking off from study to have another baby so i do feel that it would be better for me to either have the baby before or after uni, and 4 yrs just seems sooo long! i think because my first pregnancy was unplanned ive got it into my head that every aspect of this pregnancy should be perfect and fully planned but i dont know if im ever gonna feel that its the perfect time.

I was 3-4 stone overweight with each of my 3 pregnancies.AFAIK this didn't have any adverse effect on them at all. I conceived the first two vey easily, was healthy throughout, though had sugar control issues in the last 6w or so with all three. My blood pressure has always been good, despite my weight. I had 3 perfectly normal births.

I know it's unhealthy to diet hard before a preganancy - also makes you less likely to conceive. But, as it can take some time to conceive in any case, there is no reason why you can't do some very gentle dieting and exercise in the meantime. If you lost 2lb a week and took 3m to conceive (I think that's the average length of time it takes to conceive) then you would have lost nearly 2 stone, in a way that didn't stress your body.

thats what im trying to do at the minute BC i did have a problem with high BP both during my first pregnancy and for a good 2 yrs after, its only recently that its dropped back down to a more normal level and im just thinking that if i do experience pre-eclampsia second time round and my starting BP is already higher than it was the first time it could pose more of a health problem, but ive been told separate things about pre-eclampsia anyway the midwife at the time told me that just because ive been thru it once doesnt increase my chance the next time but the Doctor told me that im 50% more likely to have the problem again. its not the weight that im worried about per se but the slightly increased BP that goes with it.

I suppose that's the huge difference in our experiences, so I'm not really any guide for you. Of course being severely overweight puts you at greater risk of almost all complications. I just wanted to demonstrate that it wasn't, however, definitive.

I don't remember whethr having pre-eclampsia once maes you more likely to have it again. I suspectthat it does. But don't think that weight on its own is a risk factor, unless you had high bp before pregnany.