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.

Lelarose step away from that book. Your baby will be fine - babies are incredibly hardy things - my ds surviving as well as he has is living proof of that, let alone examples of babies born in Auswitz etc. Your baby is and will be fine. Nothing you are feeling harms him, not even your not eating well is a problem for him, only for you.

I'm sure you can see the strain on your sister's face, she must be so worried seeing you like this, she wants to see you better. But you need to let her support you. Think how you would be yourself if it was her. Sick with worry but how would you feel if she cut you out??

FWIIW I tried to do that - I tried to stop friends supporting me as I believed I was getting too much. Seeing two of my friends in tears made me believe I was asking too much. I wasn't, it was my past talking and my illness. You need all the help you can get right now to beat this thing back into proportion. Your sister sounds fantastic - don't push her away.

Yes great idea that note for the nurse. Hope she clicks this time that you are serious about his being the problem.

To avoid misunderstandings what I meant with my baby surviving is that he was brain damaged in utero and is doing much better than expected.Nothing to do with my mental health.

Oh, book schmook, lela - you need to start chucking books away before you have the baby, because there is a load of nonsense that awaits you then too.

You could also print this thread out - you've come a long way in your thought processes already; be prepared for some sniffy looks if people aren't MN fans, however!

Don't pay any attention to the book. Your baby is fine in there, this is NOT affecting him, nor is not eating well. I vomited several times a day every day for about the first 16 weeks and ate nothing but salty crackers and dry pasta and lost a stone in the process. Nothing wrong with DS. Throw the book away.
You must try to give the piece of paper to the nurse, as you need someone to see what the root of this is and help you with it.
I can't help with the "wrongness" feeling but I can categorically tell you that there isn't really any difference (or not one that matters) in the relationship you have with a son or a daughter. It is your child and you will love it and you will love the relationship you have with him. You can't see this now but you need to believe all of us who have been there when we tell you that there will come a point when you love this little boy with all of your soul. You will. You can get there.
Keep posting and talking.

I feel I am being dishonest with you all about how I really feel about having a boy and I make myself sick.

Its not just anxiety and depression. I just do not want to be the mother of a boy, a lot of that is for stupid shallow and selfish reasons. I wanted a daughter so desperately and being completely honest (nothing left to lose I already hate myself) I feel I have nothing to look forward at the end of this horrible stressful pregnancy. What a wicked, disgusting thing to say eh. So now you all know what a terrible person I really am. I am not looking forward to having my own child. I dont even have any names for him.

As I know exactly how lucky I am to have been able to conceive at all when so many people cant this feeling is totally wrong to me and I cant accept it in myself. My dp will love having a boy, so at least thats something for the poor little thing. But its lack of attachment with your mother that really fucks your life up isnt it.

I dont deserve my child I dont deserve my partner and I truly dont feel as if I deserve to live. Its a child I'm talking about for gods sake not something that I ordered in the post and want to send back because it just not quite right for me. THIS is why I cant cope anymore, THIS is why I feel suicidal. I HATE MYSELF for feeing like this, know it is terribly wrong but worst of all cant make it stop.

I'm sorry if I have offended anyone I just dont feel I can let you all go on being so kind when you dont realise what a total spoilt bitch I really am.

Tried to say sorry in the mirror earlier as someone suggested but I cant even look at myself.

Lelarose. I REALLY wanted a daughter - and had two sons.
When I had thought of having a child it had always been a girl.
BUT
I cant tell you how much i love my sons. They are the absolute centre of my life and I just adore them.
Dont assume the feelings you will have when your child arrives.
You really need to give the note to the nurse. Not just for your child - but your you. You deserve to be happy. Take Care xxx

I have friends who really, really want girls and have only ever had boys....gender preference and heartache over gender happens to a lot of people. Honestly.

Sorry...I haven't answered on your post before - just been following. You sound so desparately unhappy - I feel for you. You're not an awful, disgusting, wicked, spoilt person to have these feelings. It seems to me (and I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination) that what you're feeling or denying yourself the right to feel is the loss of the daughter that you wanted. Any loss is going to be hard to come to terms with. But denying the fact that you feel loss and bereavement of sorts and telling yourself that you shouldn't be feeling this way and that you're the most evil person in the world for feeling like it is making it all much worse. Accept that you feel this way for now. Allow yourself to mourn the loss of the daughter that you wanted for this pregnancy, allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling without judgement of yourself.

You are beating yourself up soooo much over not wanting this little boy. But as Kizzie said the feelings you have now are not necessarily a good indication of how you will feel when he's here. I know it must be hard/impossible to believe that. But it really is true. The fact that you read the antenatal depression book and felt worse that you were somehow adversely affecting his wellbeing inside you shows consciously or subsconsciously a bond/caring already.

You are not an awful person....you're just having a really, really hard time.

I know you posted that you've spoken to the 'experts' and they've glossed over the gender issue, or changed the subject. Could you maybe take your sister with you to an appointment for a bit of moral support? I would keep repeating it until they listened? Maybe A&E services aren't the best way to go - maybe they kinda look to see if you need acute help at that moment rather than necessarily if you need help in general long term iyswim? Could you do a search online to see if there's any specialist counselling services (maybe pregnancy/gender specialist?) - may even be possible to have a telephone consultation if its not near you. I don't know...I think that you feeling that there's no help available and that you have to go it alone must be making it feel much worse too. Your options for help aren't exhausted yet, I don't think - just got to find the right person/treatment/way to proceed.

xxx

I just googled this kind of thing and some people never get over it, even when they have the baby.

I've had no sleep, I have a builder banging away in my house and a mental health nurse due in an hour. I'm meant to be going to work this afternoon and I cannot face people being nice to me about my pregnancy so I'm going to have to cancel it.

I feel no reason to live right now except a duty to this child.

agree with everyone else. You can accept your disappointment at not having a girl without being a wicked or horrible person.
You don't realise, and how could you when you've never had a boy, that it doesn't matter whether your baby is a boy or a girl. It truly doesn't. And I don't say that in a "you should be grateful to even get pregnant" kind of way. I mean, the sex is irrelevant to how much you will love him. But it is hard to fully understand that until they are born and you love them. But he will be born and you will love him. He will be prefect because you and your lovely DP made him and it won't matter a jot that he's not a girl.
Try to talk to the nurse about this, or give her your paper. It sounds like your emotins are just running totally wild at the moment and you can't see straight.

NEVER google. Maybe they didn't get the help they needed. You need some help. NOW. Don't cancel the nurse.

I'm deeply confused, because finding out the sex in advance was because I thought if I need to come to terms with this better now than postnatally. But I would have been better off not knowing if there was even the slightest chance I wouldn't have cared when he was born. I know I'm obsessed, these are constant intrusive obsessional thoughts I'm having to the point where I cannot function.

I just want out of my life.

This is not getting better it gets worse and worse and worse.

If I was someone reading this I'd just think oh she needs to be sectioned. What then- they just keep me drugged up so i dont have to deal with this til the birth? which now TERRIFIES me beyond all rationality, not for the physical pain but for the emotions I may feel.

I wil speak to the nurse, get very upset, then she will leave and I will still be feeling like this.

you must tell the mental health nurse what you have just written:

constant intrusive obsessional thoughts I'm having to the point where I cannot function.

I just want out of my life.

This is not getting better it gets worse and worse and worse.

This is something you must get help with urgently. You need specialist help, be that drugs, counselling, whatever. Because you cannot let this go on.
It is one thing to suffer anxiety and depression but there comes a point when you need to make others help you. You need to stress how bad this is to the nurse and if you are feeling suicidal (even if you think you wouldn't actually go through with it) you must tell her.

There comes a point where you need more help and you seem to be reaching that point.

Keep posting lelarose, we're all willing you on to get well.

Yes, don't google. Think of how vast the internet is and how many millions and millions of people use it. You have googled and found evidence of some people who don't get over it - like Pipoca says, maybe they didn't get the help they needed. Maybe they posted and then a few months down the line are feeling fine and are out at the park blowing raspberries on their pudgy babies tummies and are too busy feeling better to update! Who knows? But I'd bet all the tea in China that there are far, far, far more people who feel gender heartache and DO get over it. Maybe some that still feeling longing for a girl but which doesn't detract from their love for their child - girl or boy! They just are much less likely to go back and post about it.

Whether it would've been better to not find out the sex? Again, who knows. Could've gone either way really. I think you did a logical thing in finding out. I would've done the same. But you're stuck at an impasse now, not knowing how to deal with your feelings, denying them and telling yourself you're the worst person in the world - which you really are not - don't listen to those negative thoughts in your head telling you different. I know its hard and I know that ultimately me or 100 other people telling you won't make you believe it.

Don't cancel the nurse....do cancel work. Don't google. Print out this thread and give it to the nurse. Give yourself a hug and try and be a bit kind to yourself....

Lela,

Print you last couple of posts out, give them to the nurse. You must do that OK? Promise you will be totally honest with her?

I think who ever said you should griev the loss of not having a girl is an excellent idea.

Why is a boy such a bad idea for you?

Don't read anymore books, stop googling. Honestly, how you are feeling is unique to you, and you need one on one support and attention. Not the general guff spouted in books!

You are not a terrible person. you are trying very hard to get over this. We can all see that. you should try to too.

Stay on this thread and keep talking to us.

Can you get signed off on long(ish) term sick leave? I think you need to get the work issue out of your mind. It matters not right now.

I am thinking of you.

agree wholeheartedly with the last two posts. Maybe being sin'gned off would be a good idea.

You must must must explain the depths of your despair to the nurse, if she reads what you have written in the last 2 posts she won't gloss over it.

Lela, google hard enough and you'll find that the earth is in fact flat and that David Icke is a lizard king.

Good for you for properly expressing how you feel - you can't go forward until you've truly faced your fears, and this is a fear that you're facing. You are afraid that you won't be able to form a relationship with your son; that his gender will act as a barrier to this. That doesn't make you wicked, but yes, you do need help.

There was a series on Channel 4 called Help Me Love My Baby - one woman felt a bond with only one of her twins, and must have had similar feelings of awfulness to you. She worked with a doctor from the Anna Freud Centre in London, and had a lovely outcome. Now, I know that's not you, and not your situation, but you are not the only person to feel like this, and people DO get over it, and go on to be the kind of parents they dreamed of being.

I did worry about how I'd cope with a boy - I cannot imagine things being otherwise now.

cant print stuff off but will give what i wrote down to nurse.

just saw neighbour, she looked at me and said are you suffering from depression. told me i should be on medication as it will be affecting the baby. I said please dont say that and she said well its not nice but you need to hear it so i had to just run away from her.

builder is banging on the walls incessantly and I've got nowhere else to go

hi lelarose. I've just read all of the thread and wanted to just let you know I'm thinking of you. I didn't have the same worries that you do, but I hated being pregnant - I felt hideously guilty for my unborn child - how could I possibly love a child if I despised the process so much? I admitted to midwives quite late in my pregnancy how much I hated being pregnant and how I hadn't even thought about having a baby at the end of it and if I could go back in time, I wouldn't have become pregnant at all. I can remember seeing the scan photo and thinking "hey, that's mine!" and feeling the kicks and although I would never have harmed myself or the baby, it didn't make me yearn to see my child, I just didn't want to be pregnant anymore, I wanted it to be over. I felt such guilt as well as I know there are people out there who are desperate for children and can't have them.
I ended up with an emergency c section and had a boy - I hadn't found out the sex, but in my mind I was expecting a girl so it was a big shock that took a few days to get used to - I was mostly just glad it was over. 18 months on and we are TTC number 2, so all of that hasn't put me off and I hope I won't beat myself up so much. Please don't think you are alone in this guilt.
You are not alone.

your neighbour is talking out of her arse.

Veeery helpful neighbour, there Lelarose's neighbour, have a !

Good idea to give the nurse the note....so long as it also covers the things you've written here -

constant intrusive obsessional thoughts I'm having to the point where I cannot function.

I just want out of my life.

This is not getting better it gets worse and worse and worse.

Crucially important points I think.

When's she coming?

I've been carefully avoiding her and everyone else so i dont have to have these kind of conversations its so easy to say stuff like that from the outside looking in.

How the hell am I going to be off work all week with the builder in all the bloody time? I hate being out of my house. Its beautiful sunny weather that makes me feel even more terrible for not being happy. I should be out there enjoying it or at work having nice chats with people about my lovely baby on the way and how exciting that is. I want to feel like that so much its just tearing me apart.

Before I was pregnant and thought I couldn't conceive I used to get upset sometimes seeing women with their babies. Now its little girls I cant stand to look at them.

she was due here 5 mins ago shes always late. I never pin my hopes on these people anyway. I think what is most likely is she will say oh you will love your baby anyway and wonder how you ever felt like this.

Well maybe so I pray to god this is the case but I cant see that right now and I feel hideous that I will ever look at my child at wish he had been someone or something else.

I just want to go back to not knowing the gender and I can go on and on about this forever but I cant change it. thats my cnstant thought that makes me so agitated I dont know what to do with myself. Thats why even tho it sounds mad I wish i could just go to work. But everywhere I go i just want to run away from, including my own home today.

Lelarose when ds was 12 hours old he went blue and stopped breathing every five minutes due to seizures - he ended up unconscious in NICU covered in wires and ventilated. I still have some heartbreaking photos of this little man in that incubator. And me...I wanted to pack my suitcase, walk out of hospital, pretend I never had a child. The nurses were the ones who knew how to look after him anyway. I didn't feel like I had a child.

Then he woke up, started breastfeeding and once he came hom we started bonding. It hasn't been easy. He sustained damage in my uterus before he was born so I felt I just failed him time and again, while pregnant, in NICU when he needed me and I wasn't there for him, and every time he was poorly or I worried and I withdrew. I went through a lot of pain this way. I had exasperated friends and dh begging me to stop beating myself up (bit like we are begging you to do the same). But we got through, I have stopped beating myself up and ds and i are very close. He is an amazing little man, you should meet him.

what I want to say is we punish ourselves so much, but we are made to love and accept our kids and we do so against the odds.

You will too.

Well....sometimes being at work is actually good for you - if you feel up to it. A good distraction if you like.

If the nurse she's 'oh well, you'll love your baby anyway' then she's not hearing you/listening to you properly. I would think that the source of the mental health issue may change between patients but the treatment and coping strategies are a bit more universal. You need some good coping strategies for how you get through this. And someone to listen to you without judgement so you can get it all out and hopefully by doing that it'll lose some of its pincer like grip on you. I really do think you need to let yourself feel how you're feeling without thinking 'I should be doing this...I should be feeling this' - its denying yourself your valid emotions.

Nurse is a half hour late now this is what she does. Yesterday she was insisting she was going to call a crisis team out for me (I asked her not to)today shes not even calling to say shes running late. I cant say anything though can I, because I'm mental right? Everythings bound to upset me isn't it.

Thank you willsurvivethis and I hope youre ok today I dont want you worrying about me. I'm so glad your wee boy is ok now.

I think I really need to see my partner- to maybe just look at him and think about having a little boy who is like him. He text me this morning saying he is proud of me- because he knows nothing about how i'm feeling about the baby oh god its so sore.

I really need to start learning to live with the decisions I make because I just go over and over and over things in my head and think what I could have done differently. It was my sister who said yesterday this is really obsessional thinking.

The way I have always coped is just to keep going but I really cant this time.