Lelarose Desperately Depressed #2

[thatsnotmymonkey]

Hi Lela, I hope this is OK, come over here. We will all be here for you. xx

Dp being here is wonderful as I feel so much safer. I feel terrible saying this though, I'm having a really bad day regards having a boy.

I'm very ashamed to admit this but I'm terrified of how I'm going to get through the birth (any day now) as I am not looking forward to having a boy at the end of it. Its really cracking me up. People say the expectation of meeting your baby is what makes it worth it all, but I am just dreading having it confirmed that I will probably never have a daughter.

I'm crying writing this (DP round at shops). I'm so full of guilt and disappointment in myself. I dont know how to live with these feelings, I wish I could jst be happy that my child is coming and not care about their gender.

Really really upset, sorry just needed to offload somewhere (hopefully) safe.

Remembering Lelarose we talked about this before with quite a few of us and the consensus was what gets you through labour is the end of each contraction and the contractions itself which do their job of propelling your baby towards the exit.

Forget the rose tinted stuff about starry eyed women smiling through contractions waiting fo their babies

Women in coma have given birth because in the end the body does the work even if you never push...

xx

I know, you're right, I just feel so sad for my baby that I feel like this. Dp asked if I was excited yesterday and I'm not, in the slightest, just full of fear and dread.

I really am absolutely dreading his birth and it makes me feel as if I've already failed as a mother. I'd have been so much better off not knowing it was a boy. I really hate myself right now.

Lelarose in our society we have such a hyped up view of this magic moment of the birth that we almost forget that the birth is only the beginning and not the biggest thing in the life of your child.

How you feel now, how you feel at the birth says nothing about whether you will love your child or whether you will be a good mum.

Give it a chance, give yourself a chance, and don't be sad for your baby - nothing has happened to your baby that requires you to feel sad for him.

xx

I know it is hard for you, but just try and tell yourself that you will get there. Lots of people are scared witless at the prospect of birth and are terrified of having a bbaby. It is not an abnormal feeling to have.

Just stay safe with your DP, rest lots, eat well, be gentle with yourself. When it all happens , your body will take over and you have to trust yourself.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being scared about giving birth, nothing at all. If anyone told you it was actually really easy and enjoyable they'd be a bloody liar, what I can almost promise you though is that it won't be as bad as you think it will be! I say almost because I reckon very few births are worse than you think it will be. Luckily we have a health service, midwives, pain relief and all the rest.

Praying you hold the little fella and wonder what all the fuss was about.

Why are you so sure you can never have a girl. The other night I sat here and wrote a massive big post suggesting you could think about adopting a little girl, then I deleted that bit and posted the rest cause I thought it might be a mistake. We have looked into it so I know you couldn't be assessed until your first born is at least three, which gives you time to get help with anxiety, depression and your childhood. Mental health history is not necessarily a no-no. Is that a stupid idea? (I thought other posters on the thread might think it was and tell me to piss off).

Anyways -I think it's okay to tell anyone you are scared about the birth, it's quite natural.

Lela, this is absolutely your safe place. It's normal to be anxious and apprehensive about giving birth. Think of it as the end of feeling tired and uncomfortable, of keeping a secret from dp, of having all those crazy pg hormones rattling round.

Please re-read tethers' post again, and know that it can and will happen for you. When you hold yoru baby, you may or may not feel something instantly, but don't worry, either way - even in totally normal pregnancies and births the bonding process is often not instant. I was fascinated by my children when I met them - falling in love with them came a little later.

Lelarose I fell in love with my son instantly, like I'd always known him - and then he became this pink baby unconscious in the incubator and then this scary baby with wires and alarms that still needed breastfeeding and was somehow apparently mine and not the nurses and then we started all over again with the bonding and I love him so so so much.

It's all a process and nothing is lost when the immediate bond isn't there.

Thanks it does help just to be able to be honest. Just hitting a real low at the moment, wake up early hours and lie awake desperately needing sleep so I can cope with day to day life but too overwhelmed by my feelings.

Tried to talk to dp this morning and it just ended with him forcing me to promise I wont do "anything stupid" once the baby is born. Knew I was lying, but I can see the strain I'm putting him under and it kills me. He says why on earth do you keep saying you want more than one baby when you feel this way about this one, and I cant admit its because I cant accept only having a boy.

I'm so utterly exhausted I could literally stay in bed all day every day its very hard to function feeling like this let alone go through labour.

Ironically the midwife tried to cheer me up when driving me to hospital the other day by forcing me to look at pictures of her daughter on her phone all the way there, saying look what you have to look forward to- was like a knife twisting in my stomach.

I do read tethers post regularly and pray this could work out ok for me its just so hard to imagine right now.

poppymouse I am pretty certain that I have way too much history of depression to adopt a child, but I appreciate the thought.

Lela, I think you should promise yourself that you will give all this a chance. You don't know how much of your feelings are affected by pregnancy hormones and exhaustion, you don't know how it will feel to hold your wee mini-dp, and to have your secret out in the open. Don't cheat yourself out of something that may start out "not as bad as you thought" and end up being marvellous and wonderful. Tethers probably felt like you do at this stage, and you know how happy she is now - I was amazed at her post, as I only knew her as the sparkly, funny poster who's very good at finding nice shoes.

Promise yourself and dp you'll at least give it a fighting chance, lela. You deserve it.

I agree with Habibu - promise him/us/yourself and your wee baby that you will give it a chance.

You can't do more than that..

xx

Habbibu is right, I felt exactly like you at this stage, lela... I'm sorry to say, but for me this was the worst bit. The anticipation. The unbearable anxiety that freezes you in your tracks.

Please try and remember that you can't anticipate the unknown, and that instead you are anticipating the worse case scenario.

Anxiety about giving birth is -weirdly- probably a healthy channel for your feelings at the moment. At least you can vocalise this anxiety without fear of reproach.

Whatever happens, the way you feel now is not how you will feel when you have a baby. You are not required to have a single maternal urge whilst still pregnant- the baby remains somewhat of an abstract concept. Don't try and force feelings that you don't have, and don't cite the absence of these feelings as indicative of failure. You haven't had a chance to be a mum yet, so please don't write yourself off before you know what it's like.

Please PM me any time you want.

just checking in to say hi, lela.

Hi there. Thanks for saying hello, hope you are well. Cant tell you how sick of being pregnant I am now... am huge, uncomfortable, my legs and feet are totally swollen and I have constant heartburn! Also totally exhausted.

Which leaves me in a strange kind of limbo because I really need this to be over but am so scared of labour and meeting the baby I can face it. Very strange and disturbing time in my life. Just thank god dp is here, I cant leave him alone just constantly needing reassurance and cuddles. Hard to believe I was ever a confident independent woman and wonder if I ever will be again.

Just praying the post natal period isnt as bad as the prenatal but its hard to imagine me being well again.

Hi lelarose been following your thread. You've had such a tough time, the toughest, you poor thing and thank goodness you are now close to a change in the situation. Because whatever you say, however you feel, this is going to be different now. Instead of worrying how you are going to feel you will know how you feel. That may be good or bad, but at least it will be different and you can deal with a tangible situation instead of dealing with your fears in your own head. I won't try and minimise this - you may have a terrible time with the birth BUT you will be moving forward and you have support now, you have your DP there, and there is lots of support available to you once you have had your baby.

Stay well, get lots of cuddles and just keep moving forward. You will get there. We're all thinking of you. You're incredibly brave and strong. x

Hi Lela,

The last couple of weeks of pregnancy are definitely the pits. Suddenly my legs and feet swelled up and it meant I didn't really want to walk or go anywhere - only one pair of shoes fit! The heartburn would be so uncomfy at night and I was just tiiiired.

The good thing is that it couldn't last forever, and while I know what comes next is scary, it too shall pass. I know for you the baby is the scariest bit of all, but you don't know for sure how you'll feel until he's here and we'll all be wishing you the absolute best. Hope that doesn't sound too simplistic, but we'll be here.

End of pregnancy is knackering, even in the best of circumstances. And heartburn is a bugger - I'm sure you know all the tricks, but I found half a ton of pillows to prop me up, and an inexhaustible supply of chewable Rennies helped me cope.

Anticipation is, ime, almost always so much worse than actual events. I always feel weird posting comparisons with dd1, in case you think I'm trying to make some po-faced point - I hope you know by now that I'm really not, it's just that she's my only real experience of trauma and stress.

Anyway, we had to go in to deliver her, and that was my first experience of labour - not exactly how I'd dreamed it, and I was scared of seeing her - terrified that I'd be scared of seeing my own baby, because she would look weird and damaged and - in truth? - horrible.

But when I look back, it's really with a smile. It was heartbreaking, obviously, but the reality was so, so much better than the anticipation, which had left me sick with fear and worry. when I was in the middle of it, it was just "happening", and suddenly there wasn't time to think, and I didn't have to be "in my head" any more, and that was oddly nice.

And when I saw her I was a bit afraid - god, I've never admitted this before - but I made myself look at her, look all round her poor wee head, because I remember thinking that I Did Not want to be scared of my own child, so I looked really hard, and saw so much about her that was so surprisingly beautiful, like her tiny tiny fingernails, and her long fingers and toes and her wee pixie chin.

Maybe that's why I want you to just look at your baby. I know what it's like to dread meeting your own child - I just hadn't really admitted this before - but really making myself look and search out beauty really gave me a peace and happiness I could never have imagined.

habbibu I feel hellishly guilty that you could cope with losing your child and I cant cope with not having a daughter. I cant imagine how hard all that was for you to go through and here am I devastated by my child's gender.

I just broke down with dp and had to tell him it was about fear of the birth when it was triggered by thinking about how I can't even call my child a name I'm happy with because its a boy (this has become a recurring obsessional thought), which then leads into how much I desperately want my child to be a girl and it never goes away- I feel like a monster.

I cant stop feeling my life is now ruined and tormenting myself for not realising how much I only wanted a girl before I actually conceived.

I'm so sorry for what happened to you habbibu and i know my problems seem like nothing in comparison x

AARRRGHH. I was really hoping that me posting about dd wouldn't have that effect. Oh love. there's no hierarchy of grief, of trauma, of Stuff. there isn't.

fuck, Lela, I had a dream childhood, easy life, nothing bad Ever Happened to me. It didn't.

And god, yes. losing dd broke my heart, but I had wonderful support and I know I'm ok. But you didn't have all that, love, you had a shitty childhood that left you bruised and battered and vulnerable and yes, this has messed with you in a way that it's maybe wouldn't get to someone who hasn't had your life - but that doesn't make you wrong or bad. OK? there's no comparing traumas - no problem Top Trumps; pain is pain is pain.

What I'm trying to say, and what I really, really want you to take from this, is that I've been somewhere where I thought I'd wake up crying every day for ever, where I was scared to look at my own wee baby, but now I'm here, and I'm ok, and you will be too, if you just give it a chance. It won't be easy, but it will happen, and your life isn't ruined. It really isn't.

Had to dash off mid-post there to feed ds, and thought some more. When I was really sad about dd, I didn't want to feel better - it felt terribly disloyal. And I was wondering if much of your desire for a girl relates to the kind of promise we make to ourselves as children - I'll never do that, i'll be better than that, I'll make it right next time. And in your case, your horrible childhood might have made those promises all the more powerful and real, iyswim? so it's doubly hard to say goodbye to that girl you wanted, that you were going to do right by, beacuse it's somehow disloyal to little lela, to that poor wee girl who wanted things to be better? I don't know - tell me to bugger off if I'm talking crap.

But if it helps, I eventually realised that it wasn't disloyal to dd1 to be ok, to be happy for almost all the time, because I was never going to forget what mattered. And soemwhere down the line you need to accept the possibility that it is going to be possible and ok for you to be happy, to like and love your son. You might always miss that girl you wanted; in a way, it's similar to me - ok, I held her and said goodbye, but she was so weee and so new I didn't "know" her either, so much of my loss was hopes and dreams, like you - but you will find a place for that loss, and feel a bit blue about it sometimes, but find joy in places you never expected.

Please, though, please don't feel bad about posting about how you feel because you don't feel it's "worthwhile" or whatever, compared to others. It's hurting you, and it matters. OK?

Sorry for essay! Cuddle dp and sleep well.

Thank you habbibu xxx.

The good news (in a way) is I woke up this morning thinking about labour and thought oh ffs bring it on- just to put an end to this bloody horrendous pregnancy which feels like it has gone on for about 2 years of my life already.

I just want this over with I cant take any more of the fear and dread. He's my son, I have a responsibility to love and care for him and I just have to deal with all of this instead of spending each minute of my life feeling scared.

This is no way to live.

I like "ffs, bring it on". A good motto, for now, and very you, I think.

Hi lela - have been thinking of you - at "FFS bring it on!".

WRT the not sleeping, the madwife at Antenatal classes explained they think its your body's way of preparing you for the broken nights to come - just what you need on the approach to delivery (not!). Something to do with the late hormone levels disrupting your normal sleep patterns. I had to resort to napping in the day whenever I could, or even just resting with your feet up if you can't actually sleep in the daytime - I know some people find it difficult. Lavender oil is safe at this stage - a couple of drops in a teaspoon of milk in the bath (the milk helps it disperse rather than float on the top). Foot rubs from DP too are recommended .

I've said it before but I think you are showing huge courage through all this.

Love it Lela, hold that thought!

During pregnancy and while we had very broken nights, I would get to the end of the day and feel like I hadn't done anything. I had to remind myself that my big job for the day was to rest. Please do the same, if you can't sleep, now and in the early days, please at least make sure you rest. You're doing great.

"He's my son, I have a responsibility to love and care for him and I just have to deal with all of this instead of spending each minute of my life feeling scared." I love this too, and I know it's not easy for you to say or think. But it's utterly true, and it's the first step on your journey with dp and ds. You'll have dips, and wobbles, and fall into the odd pit on the way - everyone does - but we'll be here to help you move on.