ME/CFS and pregnancy/motherhood

[Playingthe9monthwait]

I am an ME sufferer who is for the most part recovered (certainly enough to have worked full time for 2 1/2 years now) but still have to take it a bit easy and watch how I live. I bascially can pretty much lead a normal life but have to watch I don't over do things and still occassionally have bad days (luckily few and far between)when my body is telling me I need to rest. I am lucky enough for my health to be good enough that most of the time its no longer an issue and it now very rarely effects my day to day life.

After much consideration my DH and I have decided to start a family and I am now 7 weeks pg. However, I have started to wonder how pregnancy and motherhood might effect my health.

Now I know part of this is because I am at the stage of pg where most people feel awful. I have been lucky so far in that I have only had to deal with a little bit of nausea and tiredness. Even though both are normal pg symptoms, the tiredness does however remind me a bit of my ME. Yes I know I had loads of other symptoms when I was ill (in fact tiredness was probably the least of my worries) and have no concerns that my health is worsening but it is the same old dragging tiredness that makes normal life seem so hard and it has made me think more about how I will cope through the rest of the pg and with a LO.

I suppose what I am after is experiences of anyone who has gone through the same thing and how they coped with pg and beyond. Has anyone gone through anything similar?

I have had CFS for over 20 years.

I was really unwell when pregnant, with fevers, unexplained high white cell count, it was really difficult.

Then after I had my DD it seemed to burn itself out and I have been MUCH better than ever before (and she is 21 months old)!!

So, don't despair, even if you feel tired/unwell during pregnancy it doesn't mean you won't be able to cope when the baby is born!

Thanks for sharing HereCome - I am glad your health is so much better now!

Bumping in case anyone else has any experiences to share

I've no direct experience but close family member has CFS (and has a child aged 3). I think the real issue post birth is that the strategies you use to live with the condition (pacing etc) are just much much harder with a small child as you never know from day to day what emotional and physical resources you will need to draw on. My guess is that you should work out what you will be able to do and let your dh do everything else, rather than the usual model where dh does a few set task a day (e.g. the bath, a walk after tea) and the mothers task varies immensely day to day. This may make it more practical for your dh to be the "primary carer" at first given that work is much more predictable than childcare