desperately depressed

[lelarose]

21 weeks pregnant with first child, horribly depressed, chronic insomnia and full of fear. Partner away a lot, whenever we do spend time together I don't sleep and cry all the time and it all puts tremendous strain on our relationship (have considered splitting up even though I adore him). Can't enjoy pregnancy or even look forward to birth now. Even stupid things like choosing names now stress me out I'm so far gone.

Wanted to have a baby my whole life, feel now as if I must have made a huge mistake as will be a terrible mother as I'm too tired and unhappy to cope. Will have no support from family etc and be left alone a lot after baby is born. Been referred to psychiatrist, I keep the appointments but she doesn't help at all.

Dont know why I post on here as don't get many replies, I guess its just a relief to admit to strangers how I feel as only people Ive admitted this to in real life have no idea what to say or do so tend to just stay away.

Never felt so low in all my life. I try to bond with my unborn child but don't even know how to. All I do is feel guilty as I can't believe me being like this isn't affecting them already.

Well I managed to get washed, dressed and out of the house and I've just had to come home again because I feel horrific.

A few days ago I was depressed, and worried about how I would feel if I wasn't having a girl. I didn't know I wasn't having a girl so I still had a chance of not having to deal with that until after the baby was born , and can anyone really feel disappointed at that stage? If I hadn't gone and found out I wouldn't be feeling like this now and I wouldn't have betrayed my partners wishes, had the burden of a secret to keep from him and plunged myself into this black hole.

I was very down at times before but I didnt think about harming myself, when I was out just then i felt like crashing my car.

I am covered in self loathing and dreading the birth of the baby I have always thought I wanted. I feel like i have let myself, my partner and my child down by finding out and I can't bear it. Why did I do that to myself? It could have got better,worrying about having a boy, now its just a secret obsession I cant let go of.

Every little girl I see, every bit of female clothing I see in the shops when I'm trying to get stuff for my baby makes me feel like I'm going to pass out. This is not right, its not normal, I feel such a horrible freak. Sorry to be so self obsessed but can anyone help me at all? Twoisplenty, was I so wrong to find out now instead of at the birth? I thought it might help me with possible postnatal depression to try and deal with this now rather than then but I think I got that totally wrong, I think that by the time I'd been through labour I wouldn't have cared so much. I am hurting so badly here I cant live with the decision i made and I feel so alone cos I cant tell anyone in my real life.

Lela you now really need to go and talk to a professional. we are doing what we can to help you and we will still be here but you need professional help because of the strength of how you are feeling. we don't want you hurting yourself.

I would suggest you ring OOH or NHS direct and tell them that you are feeling so bad that you wanted to crash the car and that you are pregnant. They should get you talking to someone.

You are doing what you can but you need more help x

You haven't let anyone down, sweetheart.

I'm too frightened

There is nothing to be frightened of - except losing you, that's something to be frightened of.

I agree, please call someone who can help you with this, you need some trained help with the strength of these feelings. They will not judge you, it is clear you are unwell and need some help with all of this.

but i know i wont go through with it because I still have responsibility to keep my baby alive.

I just want to turn the clock back to before I knew the sex and i cant, i brought this on myself and knowing that is the final straw. I want to talk to my best friend who loves me and doesnt judge me but how can i explain what its really about, it has to be a secret if I cant tell my partner. how could i ever admit to him what i did and how i feel about his son who he will be so thrilled about

Your thoughts at the moment are preventing you from seeking help and you need to seek help to get better.

The fact that you are not going to kill yourself doesn't mean it's ok to feel like you want to!! And the fact that you are ashamed of keeping secrets from dp is preventing you from seeking rl support and that is not good.You need help and if you can only get it from others than your dp so be it. You must talk. Really must. This is too deep to go away just because you want it to.

they will just aske me what i want them to do and i dont know or they will section me i cant do this i cant do any of it i messed this all up and there is no going back now

You're right, you can't turn the clock back but what does it matter? You know now, because you were trying to do something you thought would help you deal with your feelings. That's nothing to be ashamed of.
I think you should tell your partner the sex. If he'll be thrilled it's a boy, he won't care knowing now or later, if it means he can help support you in how you are feeling. That means you can talk to your best friend who sounds lovely and there will be even more people supporting you and looking after you. You can't do this alone.
It will be OK but you need help with this apart from us here in cyber space.
If you feel like hurting yourself, if you feel that bad, tell a mental health professional so they can organise some kind of help for you.
You don't need to suffer like this.

you need to go forward not back. You need to make that forward step by talking and getting help, to make this alright, because it will be OK, but you need to get someone to help you make it OK.

Thanks for sticking with me. I've calmed down a little bit.

My partner will not really support me with how I'm feeling because there is no way on this earth I am going to tell him I'm in any way disappointed or upset about our child. He is a lovely man but he doesnt understand prenatal mental health- the depression and the hormones etc and what its doing to my mind or how I felt about having a girl. He would probably think I was insane.

I should have got some counselling before I found out to prepare me for these feelings. My sister has just made the point though that if there was any danger of me feeling like this after the birth then it was better I found out now, and this has helped calm me down a little.

All I want is the best for my baby I feel so guilty for feeling this way.

If I were any of you guys I would also be telling me to get professional help right now but unfortunately I have some experience of the"help" you get in this kind of crisis and it usually consists of being asked by a doctor or CPN just exactly what it is you want them to do to help you, which I'm afraid I dont have an answer to right now, and I dont feel that hospital is somewhere I'd feel safe.

Hi Lelarose, glad you've calmed down a bit. I also never could imagine myself with a boy yet when I was pregnant I knew 100% I was having a boy even though I didn't want to know the sex in advance. Don't know how I knew but just did. In the last 2 weeks of pregnancy I thought maybe I won't be having a boy so maybe I should get used to the idea of a girl. Girls clothes are always that much nicer. However, I was never that close to my mum and we never did girlie things together or confided in each other or had the kind of relationship that some people have so in a way I think it best I did have a boy as I'm not sure how good I would have been with a girlie girl. A tomboyish girl, like I was, probably would have been ok but there's no guarantee of that either.

I had my boy and I didn't get the instant bond - too drugged from the anaesthetic from emergency ceasarian. However, when he was placed in my arms (he was crying at the time) I thought I'd better say something to him so I said hello. He instantly stopped crying and turned to look at me as if he recognised my voice. I'd never talked to him in the womb or anything so I was surprised. That night, while still in hospital, he cried for ages and his dad refused to hand him to me, telling me to get some sleep. He walked him up and down but our son wouldn't stop crying. I kept saying give him to me. In the end he did as his dad needed to go to the loo and instantly our son stopped crying and fell asleep next to me in the hospital bed. It made us both laugh. The baby bonded with me; I didn't have a choice. The next few weeks you just get on with the feeding and nappies and trying to get them to sleep and sod the rest like housework or eating at a table etc and bit by bit he becomes part of you both. You eagerly wait for that first smile (we all think they smile long before they do and roll our eyes when more experienced people say it's wind when you know it's a proper smile).

All I want to say is your feelings will change. You already love your baby. We can all see this. When you see him you will love him. Maybe not straight away but it creeps up and like one of the others said you'll look back and won't be able to imagine him being a girl or anything other than him.

I think you did the right thing finding out. Better now than when your son is born. I think you've a few months to calm down and get yourself together. Have a look at the little baby boys out there. They're all so cute, as are the baby girls. Something about newborns. Cherish every minute you can of that newborn as they soon aren't.

I love my son to bits. Wouldn't swap him for the world yet if you'd asked my what I wanted when pregnat I probably would have said a girl as being female that's all I knew and males were an alien species to me despite having a brother.

Don't be hard on yourself. You'll have ups and downs but I think you sound like you can get through this.

Wishing you all the best.

Lela, I am so glad you are still here and posting. Thank you.

I have been busy with some RL stuff, so not been able to post. So sorry.

I have read all your posts, and I can see that you feel enormous shame of the feelings you are having. Its all OK, the feelings you have are confusing and difficult and you are not well.

I think you should tell your partner. You are in crisis and you can't keep this from him.

I can't help but think, that although the idea of a hospital sounds so awful, is that where you need to be to become well? Is it the relinquishing of control that is scaring you? What is it?

I know you have had negative experiences of medical professionals. But what are your other choices? Suicide is not one.

The love you feel for your child transcends gender.

Lela have read your thread and wanted to offer my support.I can only reassure you that you aren't the only mother in the world to ever feel as you do.
When I had my last child I cried every day from the first days of my pregnancy until a fortnight before she was born.She was unplanned and I had been sectioned with pnd previously I simply didn't want a baby.
Hormones though are funny things and once the birth was imminent I accepted that I was going to have a baby like it or not.
Dd was born and I loved her instantly,she looked at me so knowingly as if she knew she was meant to be mine. She is seven now and so so sweet and a definite blessing.
You are ill now and that is impacting on your feelings towards your babe. Please be brave and ask for help so that you are in the best position to welcome your baby.
If it's any help I took a whole host of medication through my pregnancy because I needed it. Dd is fine but we both might not have been here had I not taken it.Take care

Thank you all. I feel like I'm just going on and on about myself and being selfish but you are right I really am ill and I'm just going to do whatever gets me through this.

annielouise- your post is beautiful and has really touched me. Saying you think I made a good decision to find out now does help, i am so frightened that I've only managed to make things worse for myself. All I wanted to do in finding out is try and avoid feeling bad at the birth and I'm trying to avoid severe depresion post natally as it has hit me so very hard whilst pregnant. At least this is something that only affects me, I am trying to avoid my feelings affecting my little one if I possibly can. Just seems like that decision has backfired on me right now and thats very hard to take.

asdx2- hearing how other people got through this kind of thing is an enormous help. I was feeling ok about going into labour before but now I am terrified because of how I'm feeling about giving birth to a boy, and you have given me a little bit of hope that there is time for that to change.

thats not my monkey I know what you are saying and if I didn't know what psychiatric wards were like (never been admitted to one but have visited and been assessed in on before), I would maybe think about admitting myself, but I just dont feel they are a therapeutic place to be for me. however I only have one temazipan left to take and if I go back to not sleeping on top of all this I will have no choice I don't think.

I know you are all strangers and I dont want any of you to feel responsible for me but knowing people have been where I am and think I can get better is really keeping me going.

I do genuinely feel like I want to die sometimes because my life long dream of being able to have a baby has turned into such a nightmare so far. But when I think of how it would destroy my sister and my partner and take my partners child away from him I know I'll have to spend the rest of my pregnancy drugged up to the eyeballs in hospital if thats what it takes. Just really dont want it to go that far.

hiya babe, i had a real rough time when i was pg with ds because of ex and i posted on here loads, just keep posting love, it helps to type xx

The thing is this "nightmare" is not something that you have created or decided upon is it? It is something that is happening to you and somehow there isn't something inside you that can control it. It must feel so awful, knowing that you do not want to feel like this and processing what others are posting, but still not able to make the right connections in your brain that change how you feel. I am not saying that to critique you, but to aknowledge that this is bigger than just you.

Your sister sounds like a really amazing person.

I know you don't want to go that far with going into hospital, but if you are in such a bad way, and I don't doubt you, you just need to keep yourself and your baby safe.

I have not experienced what you have, I just want you to know that lots of people care about you and want you to be better.

Lelarose, I suffered from depression for years. I took prozac for many years. I've never had it since I had my child. I think having a child focused me. I know the feeling of not being in control of your thoughts, the lethargy and helplessness that goes with it. One part of your brain remembers the happier times so you know that feeling and it is as if it makes you feel worse not being able to throw off the depression or to stop crying continuously. I truly believe depression is out of your control. People suffer from shades of it but can still function. What you have and what I had a milder dose of is something different and I believe it is due to a chemical inbalance in the brain. Yes, exercise helps, socialising etc but that's on the upward curve. Please don't try and do this on your own. Look into whatever you can take to get yourself on an even keel right now. The medical profession don't need to know the reason why, no one does. Once the medication kicks in I think you will have more perspective on things. You might still not want a boy but I think you will rationalise it better. You have time to do this before the baby is born. You, your partner and baby will be a family then.

There is a really strong side to you coming through your posts and I'm sure you'll be a great mother because you are fighting it, you just need a bit of help to do it. Hope I'm not talking rubbish.

It's been really heartening to read the help you're getting from everyone. Sometimes you just have to reach out - like you have done, which is a really brave thing.

BTW, there are pluses and minuses to having a boy or girl. Even my friends with girls are dreading the teenage years. Most of my friends with girls speak of the constant headaches of them falling in and out of friends (sorry to all you mums with girls). I'm not saying boys are better, just different but they are lovely, as are girls. You will love what you have because it is a little person that is part of you but a person in his/her own right too.

Hello again, wish we could convince you that you are not a bad person, you don't need to feel guilty and you deserve to be kind to yourself. You don't deserve the way you feel. Keep talking to people, this will pass and one day you will have the perspective you need on this.

lelarose, being pregnant and having a baby are very different. how you feel now is not how you will feel when you hold your baby. don't project onto the future. try to concentrate on feeling better now. you sound so much better. i think you should keep chatting to your sister.

thinking of you.

Lela, my worries about having a boy were not as difficult as yours, but they were there, and all tangled up, I think, in my wee girl (dd1) who didn't make it. And I've thought about this a lot since having him. I love my daughter (dd2) to bits, she's fab, but I'm fascinated by my son in a different way - his "otherness" charms me in a way I didn't expect, and I can imagine what someone loving him when he's grown up is going to feel, and that makes me really happy. He's impossibly lovely in a way I never could have predicted.

Your baby's - your son's - maleness is a direct part of your partner's maleness. This man who you love, who means so much to you - all the wonderful things that make him the man he is - that's what made your baby. That, plus this thoughtful, caring woman who has the guts to face her fears and keep battling on. That's going to be some baby.

habbibu- what you said about my partner, those are the only kind of thoughts that keep me going at the moment. I think about him and how much I love him can move me to tears (a lot of things can do that right mind you). He is a big strong strapping type of man with a very masculine type of job etc, but hes also kind and lovely , he really loves his mum and if you see him around animals for example hes such a big softie it melts your heart. He isn't perfect and he doesn't express his feelings very well sometimes but hes kind and decent and strong and very handsome and I just adore him. So I know if my wee boy will be just like him this can give me hope.

I cant explain it but i still feel its not right for me though, and this thing about finding out and if it was the right thing to do is making it extrmemly hard to cope mentally, I cant find any peace about it. If it was the wrong decison I cant forgive myself. Maybe if I'd had some therapy about the boy/girl thing BEFORE I found out this wouldnt be happening. but its hard to talk about somenting you dont know for sure is even going to be an issue. If I got this wrong it kills me, things were bad enough before.

I'm very very anxious today. The problem with the temazipan is yes it gives me a few hours calm and a bit of precious sleep but the next day is like a kind of withdrawal, the nerves are worse than ever before.

I tried to call the psychiatrist there but shes away and I didnt know what to say so just left it. I dont know what other kind of medication would be better.

Sorry am going on and on again. Thank you all for sticking with me.

And yes, my sister is incredible. Just need to give her a break from helping me sometimes though.

You sound better, you're talking about your wee boy now, that is a big difference from a few days ago. I was wondering which was bigger - the fear of having a boy or the guilt at finding out? Guilt is such a waste of emotion. It would be okay to forgive yourself for the finding out, you did it for the right reasons. To be honest, even if you didn't, you still wouldn't deserve to feel as bad about it as you do. Here's another thing I was thinking - you haven't hurt anyone! You have not done any damage, except to your own feelings, so why punish yourself?

Lelarose you sound a lot better than a few days ago - I know you're struggling badly but things are starting to fall into place. Be patient with yourself and try that psychiatrist again, ask for a call back.